IIIM Press Conference: Robert Petit on Syria

Good morning.

Welcome to the press briefing of the Information Service in Geneva at the event in Geneva.

Today is Tuesday, 16th of December and as you are all here, you know that we are starting ahead of the usual time as we have a special guest today for this prequel to the briefing.

And I am really honoured and and pleased to welcome Mr Robert Petit, Under Secretary General and Head of the International Impartial and Independent Mechanism to assist in the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for the most serious crimes under international law committed in the Simian Republic since March 2011.

This is a very long title, but as you know, we call it Triple IM, which the does indeed facilitate the presentations.

Mr Pitti will, as usual, give you some initial remarks and then it will we will open the floor to questions.

And then as usual, we'll make a little pause and then we will go into the regular briefing.

I think you have received the attendance list of today.

We will speak again about Syria, but on the angle of the refugees.

So without much more ado, I'll give you the floor.

Is GPT Messi?

Better.

OK, Well, thank you, thank you and good morning.

Bonjour.

OK, Good morning.

Bonjour and thank you for for coming at this undoubtedly momentous time for Syria and Syrians who for two generations grew up under a dictatorial regime that has now crumbled in a matter of days before our very eyes.

Obviously this moment is very pretentious and necessitates obviously a lot of different actors coming together.

But since I've taken my position in, in in May of this year, I've met obviously many Syrians and, and one thing has struck me and has always been clear is that despite 14 years of, of, of stalemate, they never gave up hope for an inclusive and comprehensive accountability for their victimisation.

That hope now appears to be closer than ever to being realised and hopefully the triple I AM can fulfil its mandate, which is to play a part in that accountability process.

First off, I think it might be useful for me to go over a little bit of our mandate.

What is the triple I AM?

We were created by a resolution the General Assembly in 2016 to collect, preserve, consolidate and analyse evidence of serious crimes committed in Syria since March 2011.

We have an open-ended mandate and we have a mandate to investigate the Commission or the evidence of commissioning these crimes regardless of perpetrated groups.

We've been doing so and essentially in two ways.

As I said, collecting that evidence, we have now over 283 terabytes of of data that we've accumulated and we have been using that data and generating our own to fulfil the mandate of supporting current and future jurisdictions.

That's our mandate.

Obviously, the idea was that eventually it would be some kind of comprehensive Syria accountability.

And in the meantime, we were to support jurisdictions who have, through the use of universal jurisdictions, prosecuted, investigated and prosecuted these crimes.

Indeed, over the course of the life of the Triple I AM, we've received over 400 requests for assistance from 16 different jurisdictions representing over 230 separate investigations all over the world of these crimes committed in Syria by various actors.

These investigations have led to prosecutions, trials and verdicts.

I'm happy to say that we've been able to answer and support over 210, I think of these requests with actual evidence as well as analytical products and our contribution to these accountability processes have been recognised by several jurisdictions.

In the meantime, in parallel to that, we have been preparing for a future accountability process by developing specific lines of enquiries across a, a different, yeah, different topics and different lines of inquiry to develop a structural based on a structural investigation and comprehension of the of these crimes.

That process and that data obviously has been gathered through various sources, most significantly from Syrian civil society.

From the very beginning, I've been documenting, often times at the risk of their lives, their victimisation.

We've also gathered data in partnership with different national and international actors and we have been working alongside our partners who have complementary mandate such as the Special Envoy, the Commission of Inquiry, OPCW and now the double IMP.

Now since the events of the last what, 12 days, 13 days, we've been developing a response to these rapidly unfolding and still very much fluid events and situation.

And to do so, we have among other things, developing or using our close contact network of, of, of, of sources both inside and outside Syria and those who have contacts inside Syria, trusted sources.

We've been in contact with over 20 of them and maintaining that contact to get an accurate picture of what's happening.

We obviously want to, we have also developed a coordination with these partners, international partners here in Geneva that I've mentioned and we've noted a few things and we've established a few things.

Obviously at the first 48 hours of the situation as it unfolded, especially in Damascus was very chaotic and they were, and we have seen all of us, I think evidence of, of loss of evidence or potential evidence.

Quite clearly some of that is normal in any of these situation and especially at the pace that these events unfolded, quite understandable.

What we have, however, also noted with with with hope is a stated awareness from the transitional authorities and from civil, Syrian civil society actors of the need to preserve evidence.

When you're talking about a government, a state apparatus who for 14 years used every aspect of that apparatus to commit crimes, you will have a massive amount of documentation left behind.

That certainly was my experience, for example, in Cambodia.

So that awareness of of the need to preserve evidence is, is hopeful.

We also have noted that several national actors and also international actors have offered to help in the current situation to help the transitional authorities to preserve that evidence.

And we're certainly hoping that these efforts will continue and will have the sufficient resources to impact the situation in a positive way.

We also know that that situation varies from government to government and we are trying to keep track of those different situations across the country.

Part of which we all need to be reminded is still very much under an armed conflict.

So it's a very delicate and fluid situation.

There is however, the potential in this now accessible crime scene, or maybe I should say interlocking series of crime scenes.

They are now the possibility.

There is now the possibility of accessing evidence of the highest level of regime and allied crimes responsibility.

There's also now, as we've seen, the very poignant image, the possibility to finally establish the fate of 10s of thousands of Syrians who were illegally arrested and detained and suffered for some of them years of violence inside the prison system, which we have documented last the Friday before last in a report that we've published.

Finally, I think also what should be noted is that the situation now offers a multiplicity of opportunities for witnesses, insider witnesses among others, and also suspects that suspects that we know of, whom we know some of them and who will also come to light.

I think those opportunities will of course give rise to investigative opportunities and for both us and also jurisdictions.

In the past week, we've received at least four different requests for assistance from jurisdictions because of these opportunities.

You will no doubt understand that, for example, if a jurisdiction had for some years now an open file on crimes committed by agents of the regime with no possibility of gathering evidence, that file was probably put on the side for a while, but now it has been reactivated.

So we expect an increased demand from jurisdictions for our support based on the current events.

Now our key priority is preservation, right?

Or it should be the key priority of everyone.

And ideally, everything should be left insight preserved and secured with limited access and no movement.

However, given the circumstances, it's possible that things need to be moved.

And if that's the case, the key is to document every single step of that intervention and to make sure that it's fully documented for eventual evidence.

Lastly, we do have indeed a role to play because preservation is our bread and butter.

This is what we know how to do and we are equipped to do and mandated and created to do so.

We very much hope to have a role into this process.

And I should note that the Syrian government, since our creation denied our legitimacy and despite our try to contact our letters every year to engage with them, those letters were never answered.

We have just now, following the events reiterated through a communication to the Syrian missions, our willingness to engage and to go to Syria to fulfil our mandate.

We are awaiting a response and as soon as that response is forthcoming, we will deploy.

Lastly, I just want to emphasise how important accountability is in this transition process.

Syrians from the beginning, as I said, I've never wavered in their commitment for accountability.

I was very grateful for the statements of the commissioners from the Commission of inquiry, the special envoy Peterson States and others about the need for accountability in any of this process and that this process, this must be Syrian LED if it's asked, any chance of helping Syria transition to a rule of law based society.

So I'm happy to take questions.

Thank you very much.

As GPT there are many.

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I know some of you will will do ask that in in French.

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SGPT, sorry there is a question, just a very detailed question on the on the chat.

If you could please repeat the figure, you said 283 terabytes of data.

Yes, that's correct.

283 terabytes of data.

OK.

So I'll continue with the question.

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When you talk about the loss of evidence, could you be a bit more elaborate on that bit more concretely, what kind of evidence have been have been lost?

What do you know about that?

And when it comes to preservation, we now have the news about the mass grave about 100,000 bodies.

How do you expect that to be preserved as as a site to be investigated?

You also said that you're ready to go when you get the clearance.

What do you mean by that?

Are you going in with a team?

How many, what are you expected to do concretely when you get to Syria?

Thanks.

Yes, thank you.

I think what kind of evidence lost, I think about any kind.

We've had reports and we've seen as well, right, Papers strewn all over the floor, people leaving with computers, hard drives burnt and *******.

So I think there's a there's obviously has been a loss.

How significant that loss is?

It's very early to say.

There is, I see there, like I said, there is a need for concerted effort for for everyone.

And perhaps to answer your third question, part of that, we hope to be part of that effort.

In terms of who and when and where, it's still too early to determine, but significantly obviously rather our first priority would be to go and try and scope the extent of the issue, see exactly what is available in terms of access and potential evidence and then see how we could best assist in preserving that and then targeting specific, eventually targeting specific source of evidence for different, different needs.

Mean a lot, I'm sorry.

Oh, sorry.

And.

In terms of the mass graves, that is, you know, a very, a very complicated important area and we would certainly could assist in some of that process.

But it's a very specialised process if you're talking about documenting it for criminal purposes.

But obviously there is the competing and perhaps sometime overriding necessity to bring answers to victims that can override that need to preserve evidence from criminal proceedings.

So again, this has to be Syrian centred and would have to be done in conjunctions with various actors.

Nina Larson AFP There, yeah.

Thank you for taking my question.

So just to follow up quickly on that on the mass grapes.

Hi.

I just wondering in, in your gathering of evidence over the years, if you have an estimate of of how many mass graves there might they might we can expect to find in Syria, if you have any, any thoughts on on what might be found?

And then I had two other questions.

One was about yesterday when Mr Peterson went to the Zendaya prison, there was a someone throwing bricks at the car and and yelling that the UN was too late, coming too late.

I'm just wondering concerns around around that that the international community is going to face coming in and trying to investigate when it comes to the fact that this has been going on for so long.

And and then finally, the Swiss federal court is considering dropping the case against the Assad's uncle.

And I'm just wondering if you have thoughts on on the wisdom of doing that.

Thank you.

In terms of the, the mass graves, that's obviously been part of our documentation effort through the years.

We certainly have significant reason to believe of a certain number of them and location of them.

But that's something obviously that's not for at this stage anyways for, for, for up to discussions in public.

I have to ask them that.

As I said, mass graves are a very specific type of crime site.

The excavation of it, exhibition of it, sorry for for criminal purposes requires a lot of resources if you want to be able to get Dnas or identity cause of death, etcetera, especially if you're talking about hundreds of perhaps thousands of, of, of bodies.

So those are very complex issues.

That's in my experience anyways, sometimes takes years to address in terms of terms of the, the the reaction of some to, to Mr Peterson's visit to Zendaya.

It's it, it's not for me to, to, to, to judge or to, to try and, and, and put in perspective what, what sentiments are expressed by doing this from somebody who's, who's lived through potentially what, what, you know, all the, all the victimisation that we, that we know occurred.

It's certainly a sentiment that I've seen in other places where I've worked.

And obviously if the crime has been committed, it's already too late, right?

It's always too late.

So I think right now the call of the international community to the international committee has been heard, has been responded.

You've seen statements from the UN, multiple international actors, multiple states, regional bodies, everybody as is conscious that their needs now.

Now that we have access, which wasn't possible before 13 days ago.

Again, now that we have access, I think there is a real expression of commitment to helping Syria rebuild and we're certainly hoping to be part of that.

And in terms of the Swiss case, I have no comment on an ongoing criminal case.

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Good morning.

I wanted to ask what information you have on the perpetrators of crimes, have many of them fled and if so, where to?

And you have a message for those jurisdictions where, where they currently are?

And secondly, could you say more about the jurisdictions that have been in touch?

You said four had been in touch over the past few days.

Can you elaborate?

Thank you.

Maybe I'll start with the last one.

No, I can't because obviously we support ongoing criminal investigation and the cornerstone of that is confidentiality.

Now in terms of individual specific individuals and their whereabouts, we obviously through the years have accumulated a long list of names of individuals of interests.

We are also aware of reports, some of which we have confirmed, of individuals who have fled the jurisdiction.

There's a very prominent one that yesterday came in with a statement.

So we are obviously aware of that and we'll be monitoring the situation and both in terms of our own investigation and in response obviously to request for assistance.

Thank you.

So we can continue a little bit more.

I've got 3 questions online and then we will wrap up.

Jamie Keaton, Associated Press.

Thank you, Alessandra and and thank you, Mr Petit for coming to see us.

I have a few questions.

I'm sorry.

I first wanted to know whether or not you have any contact with HTS and do you have any signs that they will be cooperative with regard to your efforts to communicate with them?

There's AUN team in Damascus as you know and I wanted to just know is anyone pushing your case with the de facto leaders there?

The second question is about the number of jurisdictions you mentioned for, but you also said that some have already prosecuted cases based on in part on triple IM data.

Can you tell us which ones those are, please?

And are you not concerned that the ICC has not yet gotten involved?

And would you favour the ICC taking up these cases?

And finally, a quick question.

The list of suspects, at at what point could we see a list of suspects when we have to wait for, because I know that these names are under lock and key.

One of the colleagues mentioned Gilani, but also government side, when can we ever see the light of day on the names of these suspects?

Thank you.

We've, as I said, we've been in contact with the representations of the Syrian government here.

We've also made contact formally and informally rather with local contacts including obviously UN contacts to try and establish channels of communications which we're hopeful will eventually lead to the among other things, agreement for us to to deploy.

In terms of the number of the jurisdictions, First of all, as as I mentioned, we support investigation and prosecution that by nature confidential, but some of those jurisdictions have allowed us to to acknowledge our cooperation with them and our assistance with them.

Several of them, Belgium, France, Sweden, the US and others I think should be on our website somewhere have acknowledged our assistance, including in the recent case in in in France where my predecessor testified and where a judgement was issued against 4 individuals.

In terms of the ICC, as you know, the ICC does not have jurisdictions over Syria because Syria is not a member of the ICC.

There are ways, pathways by which the Syrian situation could be referred to the ICC.

That was attempted way back in 2014, I believe at the Security Council and vetoed by Russia at the time and also I believe China.

But there is that pathway, however unlikely it is, there are other pathways.

What we do have to remember is that if indeed the ICC is seized of the, the Syrian situation as it is by the way, from the Libyan situation for what, 13 years now?

I think they are, you know, it's a very limited jurisdiction and would, if you're talking about a, a, a, the situation that lasted 13 years with a whole state involved, it's a, it's a very substantive situation that needs to be addressed.

And ICC could be a part of this in terms of favouring it or not.

I would simply say that any measure of accountability for what has happened in Syria must be favoured and hopefully as I said, Syrian LED and Syrian coordinated and eventually lastly list of suspects.

Again, I would be a very poor former prosecutor if I was to publish list of suspects before before jurisdictions would have them in their custody.

Indeed, Mohammed Aslan Anadol Wansi, the Turkish News agency.

So thank you for the brief as you know, the the reconstruction of.

Syria is very.

Important for the normalisation of country and the.

Permanent.

Solution of the problem Do we think that increasing aid and investments in Syria will accelerate this process and what kind of planning should there be in this term?

Just just maybe before I give the floor to Mr Petty, we will have more about the humanitarian situation in a moment at the briefing.

So, but maybe if you will have something.

Not not much.

I'm going to stick to my lane, which is prosecuting international crimes.

But just to say to me, accountability is reconstruction.

Accountability is part of it and I would hope that and the investments among other things, in the structural aspects of accountability, which is law, courts, police, etcetera, would be part of that as well.

Absolutely.

My plans stay you in brief and that will be our last question.

Yes.

Thank you very much for taking my question, Alessandra.

Mr Patel, my question is related to the digital forensics.

If you want to make a commentary, my questions are how large is your team?

Of the digital.

Forensics.

How do you work with social media platforms?

You mentioned you have already?

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3 terabytes of data and this seems quite small compared, you know, taking off the time frame, you know, 12 years or so off for this event.

And is there adequate funding as these investigations, forensic digital investigations are expensive?

Thank you.

We don't have a large digital team.

We have a very small digital team and that's that's due to, well, the fact that we are a small entity in terms of the tasks ahead and the fact that also like everybody else in the UN system and international community, we've been hit hard by the financial crisis.

However, we do, as you said, monitor social media and we will, among other things, and it's something that we've been very good at.

You say 283 terabytes is a small part.

That's the first time I've heard that.

Usually people are quite impressed by that number.

But in fact, you are right in some ways because we could have collected a lot more.

The idea is not to vacuum up anything that's out there.

The idea if you're in the business of accountability, is to pick and choose the best evidence possible.

So part of what we do is that to target our resources once we've we've analysed the situation to the best possible leads and sources of evidence and that's what we intend to do as I just mentioned earlier, if and when we go to Syria is to target a collection opportunities and finally adequate funding.

Not even close.

We as I said been as well hit by the situation before these events.

Right now we have to pivot very fast to a completely new situation that will require substantial additional funding from from any source, from certainly from the regular budget and from voluntary contribution from states if we want to be able to address now the situation and then in a sustainable manner in the future.

The idea is not, is is to have the resources to preserve, collect and preserve the evidence now and then be able to exploit it in the years ahead for these future accountability processes.

That right now we can run the gamut from an international process to a completely national one and anything in between.

So we need to be able to wrap up and be able to address the situation with that in mind.

Thank you.

Thank you so very much, Mr Petty.

There are more questions, but UDA Abu Zaid, as you know, takes care of the triple IM press contacts, so please ask her in writing.

Mr Petty would be able to answer you later on.

Thank you very much for this briefing.

Please keep us informed of how it goes.

Thank you for briefing the Geneva Press Corps and thank you who that.

IIIM Press Conference: Robert Petit on Syria

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