‘Bigger than Nuremberg’ Files That Could Bring Assad to Justice

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Thousands of pages of evidence detailing the brutal crimes of Bashar al-Assad’s regime have surfaced, marking the beginning of a global effort to hold his perpetrators accountable. One war crimes investigator has called this process "bigger than Nuremberg." As the hunt for Assad’s henchmen accelerates, the painstakingly collected evidence may yet deliver justice for countless victims of his reign of terror.  

 

 

Following Assad's escape to Moscow under the protection of his Russian allies, many of his military officers and security officials are reportedly fleeing in fear of retribution. But the key to their prosecution lies in an unmarked office in a European city. Behind a locked door, 406 brown cardboard boxes hold over 1.3 million documents. This trove, known as the Assad archive, was meticulously compiled over 13 years by Canadian lawyer and war crimes investigator Bill Wiley and his team at the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA).  

 

 

The effort to collect these documents was fraught with danger. Wiley’s team, composed of Syrians operating on the ground, took extraordinary risks to smuggle the evidence out of the country. Disguised as shepherds and traders, they moved filing cabinets of records past checkpoints, using methods ranging from trucks to rafts. Tragically, one member of the team was killed by the regime, another was injured, and one was kidnapped by a rebel group. Some had to be relocated to safety outside Syria. In some instances, documents had to be hidden temporarily in secure locations because moving them was too perilous.  

 

 

Despite these dangers, hundreds of kilos of evidence were successfully transported out of Syria to be digitally scanned and analyzed. CIJA’s work, funded by the British, German, and U.S. governments, has revealed a chilling picture of the Assad regime's systematic repression. According to Wiley, “This is the most documented repression in history. Like the Nazis but with computers.”  

 

The Assad regime’s obsession with documentation created a paper trail of atrocities, underscoring its bureaucracy of death. Mohammad al Abdallah, a former prisoner and founder of the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre, described the killings as a cold, bureaucratic routine. "Killing those people was a bureaucratic day-to-day business," he said.  

 

The atrocities extended beyond execution orders and administrative paperwork. A defector code-named “Caesar,” a former Syrian military photographer, smuggled out approximately 55,000 photographs in 2013. These images depicted the corpses of detainees—up to 50 per day—delivered to military hospitals from security services.  

 

Assad’s regime followed in the grim footsteps of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria from 1970 to 2000. Reports suggest that Hafez was once advised by Alois Brunner, a former Nazi and deputy to Adolf Eichmann, who had sought refuge in Damascus. While the Assad regime’s exact death toll is unknown, United Nations estimates indicate that over 300,000 civilians have died since 2011, with at least 100,000 forcibly disappeared.  

 

Though Assad has found temporary refuge in Moscow alongside other exiled figures like former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, Wiley remains confident that justice will prevail. "Putin will hand him over within three years," he predicted. The documents housed in those unassuming boxes could ensure that the atrocities committed under Assad’s rule do not go unpunished.

 

Based on a report by The Times 2024-12-17

 

 

 

[harryviking]

Assad and Putin should share a cell for the rest of their life! 

[Paul Henry]

Make it a big cell because Trump will finish up in there as well !