Russia Assails Investigators Who Faulted Syria in Sarin Attack
7, 2017
Russia on Tuesday ridiculed the findings of United Nations chemical arms investigators who faulted Syria’s military for a lethal sarin attack
on the Syrian village of Khan Sheikhoun last April, calling their report full of inconsistencies, omissions and possible fabrications.
It also says investigators must embrace the "high standards" established by the treaty
that bans chemical weapons, "which includes investigation, sampling, interviewing witnesses and collection of evidence and information on the site of an incident." The American version of the resolution, which originally called for a two-year extension of the panel’s mandate, has been shortened to 18 months.
The panel is in the midst of investigating dozens of other reports of chemical weapons use in Syria, including a possible sarin
assault committed just a few days before the April 4 attack on Khan Sheikhoun, which killed about 100 people and injured 200.
Other inconsistencies in the evidence, Mr. Mulet told the council, were "not of such a nature to change the assessment." Mr. Mulet’s report was extolled by the United States
and other Western allies as scientific proof of what they called a pattern of atrocities tied to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
But he also said an analysis of soil samples from the site given to investigators by the Syrian authorities had established
that the sarin’s chemistry was identical to the sarin that the Syrian government claimed to have purged or destroyed three years ago.
