VANCOUVER – International agencies and governments are engaged in a high-stakes game of he said, she said over the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
The U.N. is backing away from statements, made by a member of a four-person panel investigating war crime allegations, that Syrian rebels may have used chemical weapons.
Carla Del Ponte, a former war crimes prosecutor, said there was “strong, concrete suspicions” that oppositions forces may have used nerve gas.
Del Ponte was formerly an attorney general in Switzerland and served as a prosecutor for two U.N. International Criminal Tribunals, for war crimes and human rights violations in Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
She and the Geneva-based U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic investigate allegations of international criminal human rights law in the conflict-ridden country.
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“I was a little bit stupefied by the first indication of the use of nerve gas by the opposition,” she said in an interview with Switzerland’s Italian-language Radiotelevisione svizzera.
This is in contrast to Israeli government allegations that Syrian government forces were the ones using chemical weapons.
“We have no, no indication at all that the government, the authorities of the Syrian government, have used chemical weapons,” Del Ponte said.
But Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the U.N. Chair of the Commission of Inquiry, issued a statement later Monday distancing the organization from Del Ponte’s comments.
“The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic wishes to clarify that it has not reached conclusive findings as to the use of chemical weapons in Syria by any parties to the conflict. As a result, the Commission is not in a position to further comment on the allegations at this time,” Pinheiro said.
According to Al-Jazeera, the Free Syrian Army Chief of Staff Saleem Edris condemned the insinuation rebel forces used nerve gas.
Del Ponte said the suspicions about rebel use of chemical weapons came from witness testimony.
That’s a similar argument Israel made last month, when it accused Syrian president Bashar al-Assad of using chemical weapons in the country’s ongoing civil war.
The head of research and analysis for Israeli military intelligence, Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, told a security conference in Tel Aviv last month the Assad regime had used sarin against opposition fighters in a number of instances.
Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird said there was little doubt in his mind about the Israeli reports, but wanted the U.N. to conduct a full investigation.
Israel’s comments were made ahead of two attacks on facilities inside Syria in recent days, which allegedly killed 42 military soldiers.
Although Israel hasn’t confirmed involvement in the aerial bombings of a military complex on Sunday and a missile storage facility at an airport in Damascus on Friday, the attacks were reportedly carried out to stop the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
*With files from The Associated Press
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