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The United Nations claims Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is implicated in war crimes in his country. The organization’s human rights chief has said an inquiry produced evidence that war crimes in Syria were authorized at the ‘highest level’, including by the President. Commissioner Navi Pillay said both sides in the conflict had committed human rights violations but that those by the Syrian government were on a much bigger scale. Marinella Correggia, Italian anti-war activist, author and journalist with a long record of covering events in the Middle east, spoke with the Voice of Russia about the war crimes the commissioner talked about and the UN's evidence.

- What kind of war crimes did the human rights commissioner specifically mean?

- I think Ms. Pillay speaks about the last report by the commission investigation on Syria. I still don’t have this report because I think it will be published in these days. But if we think of the former report because every 3 months they issue a report, since November 2011, there were crimes, they occuse mainly the government of committing massacres, seiging cities, doing extrajudicial executions, this kind of war crimes, and unlawful killings of non-combat persons. I would say that Ms. Pillay chose not a very good moment because this position seems to undermine the chance offered by next Geneva conference. And then we have a lot to say about these reports by this commission, a lot of criticism.

- Do they have enough evidence that proves the Syrian government authorized the crimes?

- We have been studying these reports since the beginning and we have 3 remarks. The first one is about methodology, second one is about standard of proof and third one is about defining the responsibility – who committed what.

As to the first thing, the methodology, unfortunately, this commission as a part of methodology works on phone interviews and interviews in refugee camps around Syria like Turkey, Jordan, but also phone interview with people who are allowed not to give their name – anonymous interviews. So, it means that everyone can say everything. The commission has no way of proving this, the standard of proof is not fulfilled and for the same events the commission speaks about, we have alternative witness who says exactly the opposite about who committed the crimes. So, in the same situation if you listen another voice about responsibility, there is a completely another version plus there are events which are not verified.

We checked also videos, so-called evidences of some events and we found that these videos don’t prove anything.

The last thing is about political responsibility. Of course in war time there are a lot of crimes which are committed but not necessarily they have been ordered by top. Many times they are committed on the ground level.

- Ms.Pillay said the crimes committed by the Syrian government were on a bigger scale as compared to those committed by the opposition? Does this sound plausible to you?

- Yes, it is very evident that the armed groups committed a lot of crimes because they stated that, they declared that, they filmed themselves. So, this is quite an evidence.