Russia calls on OPCW to unveil truth behind alleged 2018 chemical attack in Syria’s Douma

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Press TV: Russia has called on a global chemical weapons agency to conduct an impartial and reliable investigation into an alleged chemical attack in the Syrian city of Douma near the capital Damascus on April 7, 2018.

Russia’s Permanent Representative to the OPCW, Alexander Shulgin underlined the need for launching a transparent technical inquiry aimed at clarifying the actual course of events in Douma in 2018,  Syria’s official news agency SANA reported on Sunday.

“Successful work at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will be impossible until trustworthy circumstances behind the incident in the Syrian town of Douma in April 2018 are established,” the Russian official said.

Shulgin added that this sad page could be over and an international dialogue could be built at the OPCW only after receiving reliable conclusions on the issue.



Moscow has for months cited dissent by two former OPCW employees who leaked a document and an email as evidence that the OPCW doctored the conclusions of a report which found that a toxic chemical containing chlorine was used in a 2018 attack near Damascus.

According to the Russian official, the results which the two inspectors have reached and the violations they have uncovered have undermined the Western allegations.

In late 2019, whistleblowing website WikiLeaks published several batches of documents suggesting that the OPCW may have intentionally doctored its findings, notably avoiding revelations which may point to terrorists having been behind the alleged chemical attack.

One of the published documents showed Sebastien Braha, chief of cabinet at the OPCW, had ordered in an email that “all traces” of a report from Henderson be erased from the body’s registries.

Ian Henderson had found out that the gas cylinders at the site of the Douma incident had been placed there manually most likely by militants given that the area was not controlled by Damascus at the time.

Following the suspected chemical attack, Western countries were quick to blame it on the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

On April 14, 2018, the US, Britain and France launched a coordinated missile attack against sites and research facilities near Damascus and Homs with the purported goal of paralyzing the Syrian government’s capability to produce chemicals.

Damascus, however, said that no chemical attack had happened and that the incident had been staged by foreign intelligence agencies to pressure the government in the face of army advances against militants back then.

The OPCW concluded that chlorine had most likely been used in the attack. However, Syria and Russia both rejected the findings, saying they believed the incident had been staged by the White Helmets, a group that claims to be a humanitarian NGO but has long been accused of working with anti-Damascus militants and staging false-flag gas attacks.

The Syrian government also surrendered its stockpiles of chemical weapons in 2014 to a joint mission led by the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which oversaw the destruction of the weaponry. However, Western governments and their allies have never stopped pointing the finger at Damascus whenever an apparent chemical attack has taken place.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The Syrian government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri terrorist groups that are wreaking havoc in the country.

Syrian government forces have taken back many areas once controlled by terrorist groups.

The IAEA in recent years has been investigating the US claims that Syria allegedly tried to build a secret nuclear reactor at a remote desert site in Dayr al-Zawr in 2007, which no longer exists.

Syria and some other regional countries have time and again denounced the US and its Western allies for helping Israel develop its nuclear facilities and adopting double-standards on the issue of non-proliferation policies when it comes to Israel.

OPCW report on 2018 Douma chemical attack may not reflect reality: Ex-inspector

A former lead investigator with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has challenged the final report of the body’s Fact-Finding Mission into an alleged chemical attack in the Syrian city of Douma near the capital Damascus on April 7, 2018, saying it may not reflect the reality on the ground.

According to Press TV, Ian Henderson raised the argument during an informal meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Monday, which was organized by the Russian Mission.

“I speak for myself, but I know there are other Douma FFM (Fact-Finding Mission) inspectors who hold the similar concerns that I do about the manner in which the investigation was controlled, locked-down… [as well as] the findings reflected in the final FMM report,” he said.

“We believe that there is more than sufficient information out there today that has demonstrated our points that the findings of the FFM report on Douma may not reflect the actual situation,” Henderson added.

Following the suspected chemical attack, Western countries were quick to blame it on the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

On April 14, 2018, the US, Britain, and France launched a coordinated missile attack against sites and research facilities near Damascus and Homs with the purported goal of paralyzing the Syrian government’s capability to produce chemicals.

Damascus, however, said that no chemical attack had happened and that the incident had been staged by foreign intelligence agencies to pressure the government in the face of army advances against militants back then.

The OPCW concluded that chlorine had most likely been used in the attack. However, Syria and Russia both rejected the findings, saying they believed the incident had been staged by the White Helmets, a group that claims to be a humanitarian NGO but has long been accused of working with anti-Damascus terrorists and staging false-flag gas attacks.

OPCW official ordered the removal of report disproving Syria chemical attack claims: Wikileaks

Wikileaks has leaked new documents regarding the probe by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) into an alleged chemical attack in Syria, showing that a senior OPCW official ordered the removal of a “dissenting” report.

One of the published documents shows Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW, ordered in an email that “all traces” of a report from Ian Henderson, a then-OPCW inspector in Syria’s Douma, be erased from the body’s registries.

“Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry Archive]… And please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA,” the email read.

The findings of Henderson claimed that two cylinders, found in the alleged chemical attack site and thought to have probably contained chemicals, were likely manually placed in the area rather than dropped from a plane or helicopter.

Only terrorists controlling the area had land access to the area at the time.

Wikileaks claims the email was leaked from an exchange between senior OPCW officials and the body’s fact-finding mission deployed to the Syrian city to investigate claims of an alleged chemical attack in the area in April last year.

Another OPCW email exchange released by the whistleblower website on Friday showed that the body had ordered its eight inspectors in Douma – except one, a paramedic – to be excluded from discussions on the probe in July 2018.

A third leaked document detailed discussions between the OPCW and four toxicologists with expertise in chemical weapons.

The experts claimed that “no correlation” had been found between symptoms observed among the alleged chemical attack victims and chemicals possibly used in such an attack, according to the leaked document.

“The symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate chemical causing the symptoms could be identified,” the document read.

The revelations are the latest batch of leaks undermining the official report of the OPCW regarding the incident in Douma, which was released in March this year.

The OPCW report claimed that a “toxic chemical” had been used during the alleged chemical attack in Douma but stopped short of blaming any party for the incident.

The new documents along with previous leaks, however, show that the OPCW may have intentionally doctored its findings, notably avoiding revelations that may point to terrorist hands being behind the alleged chemical attack.

The leaks come as the Syrian government, which surrendered its entire chemical stockpile in 2013 to a mission led by the OPCW and the United Nations, has also strongly rejected the chemical attack allegations as a staged event to frame Damascus.

The US and its allies, however, were at the time quick to blame the Syrian government, launching a coordinated missile strike on the country despite having no proof that Damascus used chemical weapons.

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2 COMMENTS

    • this outcome can’t have a real independent result, the OPCW is created and has the only objective to give the narrative which Usa and western evil monarchies will give to dirty medias which can’t be objective too.
      AS ONU, which is controlled in large part from Usa and western regimes and for this created a very imponent outcomes as we seen many times in past, Serbia, Lybia, israHell and manymany other countries suffered very much for the criminal behavior of ONU which is paid, controlled and (being in NY) threatened in all his decisions (if not liked).
      The New World Order is the result also of Onu incredible evil behavior, in Africa, in Syria, in Jugoslavia (see Kosovo artificial creation of a nation NEVER EXISTED in history (is only an example), but from the secretary to the last clerk Onu is a very dirty full of shit entity, which finished his work from very much time.

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