REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, GENEVA - Syrians in "leadership positions" who may be responsible for war crimes have been identified, along with units accused of perpetrating them, United Nations investigators said on Monday.
Both government forces and armed opposition are committing war crimes, including killings and torture, spreading terror among civilians in a nearly two-year-old conflict, they said.
The investigators' latest report, covering the six months to mid-January, was based on 445 interviews conducted abroad with victims and witnesses, as they have not been allowed into Syria. The independent team, led by Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro, called on the UN Security Council to "act urgently to ensure accountability" for grave violations, possibly by referring the violators to the International Criminal Court for prosecution.
"The ICC is the appropriate institution for the fight against impunity in Syria. As an established, broadly supported structure, it could immediately initiate investigations against authors of serious crimes in Syria," the 131-page report said.
It added: "Individuals may also bear criminal responsibility for perpetuating the crimes identified in the present report. Where possible, individuals in leadership positions who may be responsible were identified alongside those who physically carried out the acts."
Karen Konig AbuZayd, one of the four commissioners on the team of some two dozen experts, told Reuters: "It is the first time we have mentioned the ICC directly. The Security Council needs to come together and decide whether or not to refer the case to the ICC. I am not optimistic."
But its third list of suspects, building on lists drawn up in the past year, remains secret. It will be entrusted to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, upon expiry of its current mandate at the end of March, the report said. Pillay, a former judge at the ICC, said on Saturday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should be probed for war crimes and called for immediate action by the international community, including possible military intervention.
The death toll in Syria is likely approaching 70,000 people, Pillay told the Security Council last week in a fresh appeal for it to refer Syria to the ICC, the Hague-based war crimes court.
Oposition forces
Opposition forces fighting to topple Assad in the protracted and increasingly sectarian conflict have committed war crimes include murder, torture, hostage-taking and using children under age 15 in hostilities, the UN report said. "They continue to endanger the civilian population by positioning military objectives inside civilian areas," it said. Opposition snipers had caused "considerable civilian casualties".
"The violations and abuses committed by anti-government armed groups did not, however, reach the intensity and scale of those committed by government forces and affiliated militia."
Foreign fighters, many of them from Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt, have radicalized the oposition and helped detonate deadly improvised explosive devices, it said.
The two other commissioners are former chief ICC prosecutor Carla del Ponte and Vitit Muntarbhorn of Thailand.
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