THE HAGUE: The head of the world’s chemical weapons watchdog on Monday defended a report into an alleged chlorine attack in Syria, despite allegations of a cover-up by a whistleblower.
Wikileaks published an email from a member of the team that investigated the attack in the town of Douma in April 2018, which accused the body of altering the original findings of investigators to make evidence of a chemical attack seem more conclusive.
Russia and its allies have seized on the email and an earlier document which both question the conclusion by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in March 2019 that chlorine was used in Douma.
The row added to tensions at the OPCW’s annual meeting in The Hague over a new team that will shortly name culprits for attacks in Syria for the first time.
“It is in the nature of any thorough inquiry for individuals in a team to express subjective views,” OPCW Director General Fernando Arias told member countries.
“While some of these diverse views continue to circulate in some public discussion forums, I would like to reiterate that I stand by the independent, professional conclusion” of the probe.
First responders said 40 people were killed in Douma.
Britain, France and the United States unleashed missile attacks on suspected chemical weapons facilities run by President Bashar Assad’s regime after the attack.
Russia and Syria have alleged that the incident was staged to provide a pretext for Western military action.
The leaked email by an investigator going by the alias “Alex” and quoted by Wikileaks expresses the “gravest concern,” saying the OPCW report “misrepresents the facts” and contains “unintended bias.”
The email, written in 2018, says the OPCW report changed the language on the levels of chlorine allegedly found compared to what investigators originally wrote, to make it appear that the presence of the chemical was more conclusive than it was.
It also focuses on whether or not the chemical came from barrels found at the scene, and whether those barrels had been dropped from the air — which would indicate Assad’s forces — or placed manually there — which would indicate it was staged by Syrian rebels.
The OPCW earlier this year launched an internal investigation into the leak of another document by a member of the Douma team raising similar concerns.
Syria agreed to hand over its chemical arsenal in 2013 to avoid US and French air strikes in retaliation for a suspected sarin attack that killed 1,400 people in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.
But the OPCW says there have been further attacks since then.
Despite opposition from Syria and its allies, OPCW states voted in 2018 to give the organization new powers to pin blame on culprits for the use of toxic arms.
Details of the Douma incident have been passed to a new team set up to name the perpetrators, Arias said.
Moscow and its allies are now threatening to block next year’s OPCW budget if it includes funding for the team, which could effectively shut down the watchdog.
China’s ambassador to the OPCW Xu Hong said the new identification team risked turning the watchdog into a “political tool.”
OPCW chief Arias however said it was a “key responsibility of the conference to ensure that the organization has a budget in order for it to operate next year.”
Western nations believe the budget will pass with a large majority, as it did last year.
Tensions have also been high since four Russian spies were expelled from the Netherlands in 2018 for allegedly trying to hack into the OPCW’s computers.
Russia and the West may however reach agreement on the thorny issue of whether to extend the list of banned chemical weapons for the first time to include new “novichoks” — the Soviet-era nerve agent used in the 2018 Salisbury attacks.
London blamed Moscow for the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter.
The OPCW won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 and says it has eliminated 97 percent of the world’s chemical weapons.
Chemical warfare watchdog hits back at Syria report doubts
Chemical warfare watchdog hits back at Syria report doubts
- Wikileaks published an email from a member of the team that investigated the attack in the town of Douma in April 2018
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Aidarous Al-Zubaidi: Fugitive at large
- Yemen appoints committee to probe allegations against former STC leader after the group’s collapse and his reported flight from the country
- Preliminary findings accuse Al-Zubaidi of exploiting public office for personal gain, fueling political division and instability in south
LONDON: A special committee formed on presidential authority by Yemen’s public prosecutor’s office has made a series of findings against Maj. Gen. Aidarous Al-Zubaidi, the sacked vice-president of the country’s Presidential Leadership Council (PLC).
Al-Zubaidi, who is accused of high treason and other crimes against the state, is currently on the run.
Arab News has seen a copy of preliminary findings by the committee which reveal that Al-Zubaidi is accused of abuses of power including corruption, land grabbing and oil trading for personal gain.
On Jan. 7, the PLC issued a decree revoking Al-Zubaidi’s membership of the PLC and accusing him of high treason and other serious crimes, including forming an armed gang, killing military officers and soldiers, and undermining the country’s sovereignty.
At the same time it authorized the public prosecutor’s office to form a special committee to investigate allegations against Al-Zubaidi, empowering it to summon and arrest individuals, gather evidence and take necessary actions according to the law, with a mandate to complete the investigation quickly and to provide periodic reports to the PLC.
The committee’s preliminary findings identify a series of serious allegations against Al-Zubaidi, who is said to be responsible for multiple abuses “which have contributed to creating a state of political and popular division in the southern governorates.”
Al-Zubaidi is the leader of the Southern Transitional Council (STC). On Jan. 7, Al-Zubaidi was due to attend talks in Riyadh with a 50-member delegation from the STC, but at the last minute, he fled instead.
The committee’s findings include allegations that Al-Zubaidi is alleged to have seized large plots of land, including in the Aden Free Zone, on Al-Ummal Island, in Bir Fadl and the Ras Omran area.
The committee has also uncovered allegations that pressure was exerted on the Yemen Petroleum Company and its director, Tareq Al-Walidi, to prevent the import of fuel except through a company affiliated with Al-Zubaidi’s brother-in-law, Jihad Al-Shoudhabi, and the Minister of Transport, Abdul Salam Humaid.
For nearly two years, it is claimed, Al-Shoudhabi has been the sole supplier, earning large profits that have gone to Al-Zubaidi’s treasury.
The report also identifies commercial companies owned by Al-Shoudhabi and, “behind him,” it is claimed, Al-Zubaidi. Two are named in the report: Alahlia Exchange & Transfers Company and Arabian Furniture Center, one of Yemen’s largest furniture companies. Both are headquartered in Aden.
All these and other “deeply regrettable acts of seizure, plunder, and financial and administrative corruption,” the committee says, “have had serious repercussions in southern circles and were a direct cause of southern division and the emergence of many grievances.”
On Thursday, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said there was reliable intelligence indicating that on the night of Jan. 7, Al-Zubaidi had departed from Aden on a ship bound for Somaliland — probably the port of Berbera, 260 kilometers south across the Gulf of Aden.
From there he is believed to have been flown on a cargo aircraft to Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE, via Mogadishu, the coastal capital of Somalia, a flight of about 2,600 km.
Some of the crimes of which Al-Zubaidi is accused relate to the largescale military offensive launched by STC forces across southern Yemen in December.
“We know that the Southern Transitional Council worked to storm the eastern cities militarily,” a source close to the Yemeni government told Arab News.
“The pattern and scale of grave human-rights violations and acts of security and military escalation witnessed by the eastern cities in the south of the homeland — Hadhramout, Al-Mahra and Shabwah — as a result of the military incursion by the forces of the Transitional Council during the monitoring period extending from Dec. 3, are considered heinous crimes against the Yemeni people.”
According to the Yemeni Ministry of Legal Affairs and Human Rights, a total of 2,358 individual offences have been identified, including cases of extrajudicial killing and physical injuries, arbitrary arrests and captivity, enforced disappearance and displacement, and the destruction and looting of public and private property.
Backed by Saudi airstrikes, in the first week of January, the Yemeni government quickly regained the captured territories, Al-Zubaidi was sacked from the PLC and charged with treason, and the UAE announced it would withdraw its remaining troops from the country.
Following Al-Zubaidi’s disappearance on the eve of the planned talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia has accused the UAE of helping to smuggle the wanted man out of the country.
The same source told Arab News there is evidence that Al-Zubaidi “was receiving YER 10 billion ($42 million) monthly … deducted from the aid that Yemen was receiving.
“While Al-Zubaidi was receiving those funds, Yemeni citizens had not been receiving their lawful salaries for years, including the diplomatic corps.”
Last Thursday, Mohammed Al-Jaber, the Saudi ambassador to Yemen, announced that the Kingdom would assume responsibility for the salaries of Yemeni state employees, including military personnel, giving $90 million to cover salaries for two months.
On Friday evening, Al-Zubaidi, his whereabouts still unconfirmed, made his first public statement since his disappearance 10 days ago.
“We will no longer accept any solutions that diminish our rights or impose an unacceptable reality upon us,” he wrote in a social media post that left no doubt about his determination to undermine the internationally recognized government of Yemen.
He added: “I pledge to you ... that we will continue together until we achieve the desired national goal.
“With your determination, we will prevail. With your unity, the South will be protected, and with your will, the future state will be established.”
