Anadolu Agency files evidence at Hague war crimes court

By Ilker Girit

ISTANBUL (AA) - Anadolu Agency submitted a 292-pages-long file to the International Criminal Court at The Hague on Friday detailing the evidence of Bashar al-Assad regime's chemical attack on civilians in Syria last April.

At least 100 people were killed and hundreds others injured in the chemical attack on April 4 in Khan Sheikhun town in western Idlib province.

Anadolu Agency correspondents and photographers were the first members of the media to arrive at the scene a day after the attack.

They interviewed eyewitnesses and civil defense units, and captured footage of the area that was strewn with wreckage and rocket shrapnel.

The evidence detailed in the file mainly includes photographs of the dead and severely-injured Syrian civilians; video interviews of neighborhood residents; and pictures and videos of the attack site, including aerial photography.

The file also quotes doctors who "observed that the weapons used were weapons of mass destruction and contained chlorine gas".

"Anadolu Agency reporter Abdurrauf Kantar, who was first to arrive at Khan Sheikhun, was exposed to the poisonous gas and hospitalized," the file added.

The Assad regime carried out 207 chemical attacks since the first one in western Homs province’s Al-Bayyada district on Dec. 23, 2012, according to a report released on the fourth anniversary of the East Ghouta attack and published by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) Monday.

On Aug. 21, 2013, more than 1,400 civilians were killed and more than 10,000 injured, including women and children in a chemical attack on East Ghouta.

According to Monday’s report, the regime carried out at least five more chemical attacks since April’s attack on Khan Sheikhun.