The commission has emphasized the importance of protecting evidence that will demonstrate the circumstances under which people were detained — and killed — under the Assad regime “for justice to prevail in Syria.”
Syria’s de facto rebel leadership has vowed to bring members of the Assad regime to justice, but with the ousted dictator having fled to Russia, it is unclear how or when he might be tried since Moscow is not party to the International Criminal Court and neither is Syria.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a news briefing Tuesday that the U.S. was in talks with a number of United Nations agencies to ensure that Syrians receive answers and accountability over the killings, disappearances, mass graves and imprisonment that came to define Assad’s reign.
“When you look at the evidence that is coming out of Syria in the now 10 days since the Assad regime fell, it continues to shock the conscience,” he said.
“And I’m referring not just to the mass graves that have been uncovered, but information that we have been gathering inside the United States government, including information that’s not yet publicly known,” Miller said, hinting there is yet more to be revealed about the abuses that unfolded under the Assad regime.
“We just continue to see more and more evidence pile up of how brutal they were in mistreating their own people, in murdering and torturing their own people,” he said.