The investigation team that revealed details of the Tadamon massacre in Damascus, represented by Syrian researcher Annsar Shahoud and Dutch-Turkish academic Uğur Ümit Üngör, issued a statement today, Sunday, May 31, responding to accusations against the team in the case of handing over evidence related to Rania al-Abbasi’s children.
The team confirmed that it did not hide any evidence or information related to the victims of the massacre, and that identifying the victims is the responsibility of the competent judicial authorities, not researchers.
In the statement, the team said that misinformation and rumors circulated on social media obstruct access to truth and justice. It called for relying on published research materials about the Tadamon massacre, rather than undocumented information or what it described as “conspiracy theories.”
It added that images recently circulated as screenshots from recordings showing the execution of children do not match any of the videos the team reviewed during its investigation into the Tadamon massacre.
Ethical and Legal Considerations
The statement explained that the team had committed from the start of the investigation not to publish, leak, or broadcast the videos in its possession, to preserve the dignity of the victims, prevent exploitation of the footage, and avoid causing additional trauma to Syrian society.
The researchers denied accusations of hiding evidence or withholding information, describing the claims as “unacceptable defamation” against a team that spent years documenting and exposing crimes.
The statement stressed that identifying the victims was never within the team’s mandate or capacity, noting that this responsibility lies with the German federal prosecutor and the competent judicial bodies, as the researchers had previously clarified in a statement issued in 2022.
The researchers also explained that they had handed all evidence related to the case to German and Dutch authorities before the investigation was published in April 2022. They said those authorities had stressed at the time the need to preserve the judicial chain of custody for the evidence to ensure it could be used before courts.
The statement added that publishing the videos at the time would have affected judicial proceedings, citing the verdict issued by the Hamburg court in Germany against Ahmed H., the bulldozer driver who helped dig the mass grave linked to the massacre.
Controversy After Fate of Abbasi Children Announced
The statement came after a wave of criticism following the National Commission for the Missing’s announcement on Saturday, May 30, that it had reached what it described as “reliable and cross-checked” findings indicating the death of the six children of doctor Rania al-Abbasi, who was arrested with their mother in 2013.
The children’s maternal uncle, Hussam al-Abbasi, said in a video recording that the family had been misled about the identity of children appearing in video recordings linked to the Amjad Youssef case. He added that over the past months, he had contacted members of the Tadamon massacre investigation team to obtain information about these recordings.
Al-Abbasi said some members of the team had previously told him that the children appearing in the recordings were not his sister’s children, before later information led the family to believe that the children shown in the videos were indeed Rania al-Abbasi’s children.
He also criticized the way the National Commission for the Missing announced the investigation results, saying it did not give the family enough time to psychologically prepare its members to receive the news.
Commission: We Informed Family Before Announcement
In an earlier clarification to Enab Baladi, the media office of the National Commission for the Missing said the commission had received, about two and a half weeks earlier, materials, documents, and videos related to the case in a European capital, under internationally recognized handover and receipt procedures.
It added that immediately after receiving the materials, the commission formed a joint working team with the relevant national bodies to analyze them. It said forensic and technical investigations and analyses led to a conclusion, with a high degree of certainty, that Rania al-Abbasi and Abdulrahman Yasin’s children had been killed.
According to the commission, members of the Abbasi and Yasin families were contacted and informed of the investigation results. The commission’s psychological support team also visited members of the two families in Damascus and Tartous before the results were announced through official platforms.
The media office affirmed that the commission works as a national humanitarian and legal institution concerned with uncovering the fate of missing persons, while identifying those responsible for crimes and holding them accountable remains the jurisdiction of judicial bodies and other relevant national authorities.
Calls to Disclose Evidence
In parallel, rights advocates called for enabling the competent Syrian authorities to access the video materials linked to the case, in a way that would help identify the victims and complete investigations related to crimes of enforced disappearance.
Syrian rights defender Mansour al-Omari had called on the authorities concerned with the missing persons and transitional justice file to obtain and analyze all videos and information linked to the Tadamon massacre, saying these materials may contain additional evidence of grave crimes committed during the years of conflict.
The case of Rania al-Abbasi’s children became the focus of broad controversy after the Syrian Interior Ministry announced the existence of evidence indicating the children had been killed. The ministry also announced that preliminary investigations showed the involvement of former officer Amjad Youssef in the case, while investigations continue to uncover the circumstances of the crime and identify those responsible.
if you think the article contain wrong information or you have additional details
