In Syria, the Greatest War Crimes of the 21st Century

(CBS News) Scott Pelley - March will bring the 10th anniversary of the popular uprising that began Syria's civil war. The Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, has gassed the innocent, bombed hospitals and schools, and made thousands disappear. In 2013, the Syrian army shelled the Damascus suburb of Ghouta with nerve gas. 1,400 men, women and children were exterminated. A military photographer called "Caesar" was ordered to make a record at morgues that received the dead from Assad's secret prisons. He smuggled out of Syria thousands of photos of those who had been tortured to death. The Independent Commission for International Justice and Accountability, funded, in part, by the U.S. and EU, is building war crimes cases against Assad and his regime. Stephen Rapp, who prosecuted war crimes in Rwanda and Sierra Leone and served as U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues, chairs the commission. He said, "We've got better evidence - against Assad and his clique - than we had against Milosevic in Yugoslavia, or we had in any of the war crimes tribunals in which I've been involved."


2021-02-22 00:00:00

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