A UN commission probing Syria rights abuses has gathered enough evidence to convict President Bashar Assad of war crimes, an outgoing member of the commission says in interviews published Sunday.
Veteran former war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, who is preparing to step down after five years serving in the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, tells Swiss media the evidence against Assad was sufficient to secure a war crimes conviction.
Member of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria, Carla del Ponte, attending a press conference in Geneva, March 17, 2015. (AFP Photo/ Fabrice Coffrini/File)
“I am convinced of that,” she tells Le Matin Dimanche and the Sonntagszeitung weeklies, adding though that with no international court or prosecutor tasked with trying the Syria war crimes cases, justice would remain elusive.
“That is why the situation is so frustrating. The preparatory work has been done, but nevertheless, there is no prosecutor and no court,” she says. “It’s a tragedy.”
Del Ponte, a 70-year-old Swiss national who came to prominence investigating war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, made the shock announcement earlier this month that she would resign from the UN commission because it “does absolutely nothing.”
— AFP
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