The New Yorker Radio Hour
Episode: Building a War-Crimes Case Against Bashar al-Assad
Date: August 11, 2017
Host: David Remnick
Guests: Ben Taub, Bill Wiley, Mazen Alhamda, Stephen Rapp, Abdul Majid Barakat, Kevin Jon Heller

Overview

This episode explores the painstaking and covert efforts to document and build a legal case against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his regime for war crimes committed during the Syrian civil war. Reporter Ben Taub details the work of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), led by Bill Wiley, as it collects documentary and testimonial evidence linking Assad and his top officials to systematic torture, mass murder, and crimes against humanity. The episode also addresses the international legal and political obstacles to holding Assad accountable. It features vivid, harrowing testimony from survivor Mazen Alhamda and closes with a legal and political analysis from criminal law expert Kevin Jon Heller.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction: The Syrian War and the Quest for Justice

• David Remnick opens by contextualizing Syria in U.S. politics, emphasizing the Trump administration’s focus on Syrian refugees and the broader tragedy (00:28).
• The regime of Bashar al-Assad is described as responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and massive displacement, with the international community largely paralyzed.

2. A Vacuum of Accountability

• Ben Taub notes the despair among top UN and humanitarian officials who have left their posts, citing the hopelessness of stopping the killing (02:03).
• He interviews Stephen Rapp, former U.S. Ambassador for war crimes, who describes how international justice has stalled—Russia and China veto Security Council referrals to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Syria (02:27).

3. The CIJA: A Secretive Evidence Collection Effort

• Introduction to the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), a clandestine organization conducting independent investigations into war crimes with no court mandate—an unprecedented model (03:05).
  • Quote - Stephen Rapp (03:14):
    “They’ve hired non-Syrians and hired people that worked in tribunals…prepared case dossiers and pretrial briefs…ready to go to court if you had a court to go to.”
• CIJA’s evidence room contains around 600,000 pages of Syrian regime documents (05:34).

4. How the Atrocities Were Systematized

• Bill Wiley explains the importance of tracing crimes up the chain of command, focusing on high-level perpetrators rather than low-level killers (06:24).
  • Quote - Bill Wiley (06:24):
    “International criminal justice is focused on ensuring the accountability of high and the highest level perpetrators. We’re not interested in low-level hands-on killers.”
• In August 2011, a secret Syrian committee codified the strategy of mass arrests and torture, as documented in meeting minutes (07:45—08:37).

5. Insider Evidence and Leaked Documents

• Abdul Majid Barakat, a young government insider and covert mole, leaked crisis cell documents and security briefings guiding repression (08:37–09:40).
• Barakat’s secretary eventually discovered him, leading him to flee, but not before extensive document leakage to CIJA.

6. A Survivor’s Story: Mazen Alhamda

• Former detainee Mazen Alhamda describes the grassroots protest movement, his arrest, and entry into a nightmarish detention system (10:08–11:05).
• He recounts conditions in overcrowded, unsanitary cells, followed by torture designed to force confessions (11:41–13:23).
  • Quote - Mazen Alhamda (13:23):
    “You feel like your penis is going to be cut off. Are you going to admit, or I’m just going to cut it off? No, no, I’ll admit, please.”
• Hamada is subjected to torture so heinous that Taub issues a trigger warning, and Hamada himself tries to maintain humor to cope (13:58).

7. The Origins and Methods of CIJA's Evidence Gathering

• CIJA trains Syrian activists in the collection of regime documents, not just videos—emphasizing legal standards for admissible evidence (15:33–17:28).
  • Quote - Bill Wiley (16:21):
    “The tendency of human rights activists...was to run around with cameras...as criminal evidence, it’s basically useless.”
• Rebels were taught to prioritize seizing and preserving documents during operations, often risking their lives (18:03–19:19).

8. The Enormous Risks and Losses

• Document extraction is perilous; early casualties included deaths and injuries among those moving documents across the country (19:19).
• Unexpected perils: some evidence was destroyed accidentally, as when an elderly woman burned boxes for warmth (20:15).

9. Pattern Evidence and Systematic Crimes

• After analyzing documents and collecting hundreds of witness statements, CIJA builds a case showing these crimes as systemic—not isolated.
  • Quote - Bill Wiley (27:46):
    “Victim witnesses...are a dime a dozen. We don’t need a lot of victims to build a case...A lot of that's designed to secure pattern evidence, the patterns of perpetration and so forth.”

10. The Fate of Detainees and the Caesar Files

• Hamada’s stay at Hospital 601 reveals further horrors: maltreatment by medical staff and the presence of dead bodies stacked in toilets and beds (23:19–25:18).
• These deaths were documented by a military police photographer, “Caesar,” who later smuggled out tens of thousands of graphic photos—now central evidence in human rights investigations (25:18–26:00).
  • Quote (Ben Taub at 25:45):
    “Three prominent international war crimes experts say they’ve received a huge cache of photographs documenting the killing of some 11,000 detainees…”

11. Freedom, Exile, and the Ongoing Pursuit of Justice

• After a judge shows pity and releases him due to his health, Hamada discovers his family is missing and flees Syria, ultimately reaching the Netherlands (26:59–27:46).
• CIJA’s aim is to show these atrocities are linked to explicit top-down instruction—from Assad and his closest circle.

12. The Grim Realities of Justice—Legal and Political Hurdles

• David Remnick speaks with Professor Kevin Jon Heller about the prospects for Assad ever facing trial (30:32).
• The panel outlines why ICC prosecution is effectively blocked by Russian/Chinese vetoes, and why special tribunals or national prosecutions are improbable as long as Assad remains in power (32:18).
  • Quote - Kevin Jon Heller (30:37):
    “I don’t think we will ever see Bashar Al Assad prosecuted by the ICC...there’s no reason to think that they would change their mind anytime soon.”
• Heller stresses the importance of tempering expectations—many lower-level perpetrators in all factions may one day face justice, but dictators usually evade the dock.

13. Lessons From Past War Crimes Trials

• Hussein’s trial in Iraq is cited as a “missed opportunity” for genuine justice, while the Nuremberg, Rwanda, and Yugoslav tribunals serve as better (if imperfect) models (33:25–35:46).
  • Quote - Kevin Jon Heller (33:32):
    “The Nuremberg trials...really are, are an object lesson in how to do things correctly...if we can give the Nazis a fair trial...I would like to think...that we could give them fair trials today.”

14. The Dilemma and Ethics of Defense

• Heller discusses the ethical necessity to defend even “very, very serious” criminal defendants, emphasizing the importance of fair trials and adequate defense counsel (37:10–38:34).
  • Quote - Kevin Jon Heller (38:34):
    “Every defendant deserves a zealous defense...your role is to ensure that they’re convicted of what they actually did and not convicted of what the prosecution says that they did.”

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On the document trove:
  Bill Wiley (05:34): “There’s about 600,000 pages of material here.”
• On the logic of state violence:
  Ben Taub (06:36): “The system is way more sinister than individual cases of abuse because the chain of command demanded results.”
• On the psychological toll of testimony:
  Mazen Alhamda (23:00): “I can’t say his story without crying.”
• On the staggering risk and creativity of evidence gathering:
  Ben Taub (19:19): “They’ve hidden around half a million pages inside the country, in caves, in abandoned homes, buried in the ground.”
• On the potential for justice despite the odds:
  Bill Wiley (28:34): “At some point...the most serious perpetrators in Syria...they will be brought to justice.”
• On legal reality checks:
  Kevin Jon Heller (30:37): “I don’t think we will ever see Bashar Al Assad prosecuted by the ICC.”
• On the need for fair defense:
  Kevin Jon Heller (38:34): “Every defendant deserves a zealous defense...your role is to ensure that they’re convicted of what they actually did and not convicted of what the prosecution says that they did.”

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:28] — David Remnick introduces the Syrian conflict and U.S. politics
• [02:27] — Ben Taub on the lack of justice and the role of the ICC
• [05:08] — Introduction of Bill Wiley and the CIJA
• [08:37] — Abdul Majid Barakat’s infiltration and document leaks
• [10:08] — Mazen Alhamda’s background and activism
• [13:23] — Graphic torture described by Alhamda
• [15:33] — CIJA’s origins and evidence collection strategy
• [19:19] — Dangers and losses in extracting evidence
• [23:19] — Hospital 601 and the “Caesar” photographs
• [27:46] — CIJA’s case-building strategy: pattern evidence over individual stories
• [30:32] — Legal expert Kevin Jon Heller on the limits of war-crimes prosecution
• [33:32] — Nuremberg and the characteristics of just tribunals
• [37:10] — Defense counsel’s ethical imperative in international criminal law

Tone & Language

The episode alternates between the clinical precision of legal and investigative professionals and the raw emotion of survivor testimony. There’s a clear sense of moral urgency, tempered by realism about the limits of international law and geopolitics. The language is direct, sometimes technical but always accessible, and unflinching in describing atrocity.

Conclusion

This episode offers an in-depth look at the behind-the-scenes, often heartbreaking work of documenting and prosecuting war crimes. It illuminates the technical, moral, and logistical complexity of bringing leaders like Bashar al-Assad to justice—while centering the lived experiences of survivors and the dedicated, sometimes quixotic drive among investigators to preserve the facts for the day when justice might be possible. The episode closes on both a sobering and hopeful note: justice, where it occurs, is slow and partial—but the buildup of evidence, commitment to fairness, and historical lessons give reason to keep pressing forward.