The Censored Scientific Issue at the Heart of the OPCW-Douma Cover Up

Authors Note: The OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons)-Douma controversy concerns the issue of alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria. In 2018 the US, UK and France carried out missile strikes on Syria after accusing the Syrian government of having launched a chlorine gas attack that killed 43 civilians. Immediately controversial, it subsequently emerged that two whistleblower inspectors involved in the investigation of the alleged attack reported that evidence and reports were being manipulated and evidence suppressed so as to reach a ‘preordained conclusion’ that suggested Syrian government culpability.

Published simultaneously with

UK Column

Since the fall of the Syrian government in early December 2024, a series of media interviews with alleged witnesses linked to the alleged chlorine chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria, on the 7 April 2018, have appeared. Some of these claim the attack occurred as alleged and that the Syrian government dropped two yellow chlorine gas cylinders onto a residential area (see also Adam Larson's analysis here). Others claim that medical staff were coerced into giving false testimony in order to suggest the alleged attack did not happen.

Image 1 ‘PR’ image released by the White Helmets ‘first responders’ depicting a chlorine gas cylinder that had purportedly smashed through a metal bar reinforced concrete ceiling to bounce off the floor, fly 3 metres across a bedroom, and then land on bed.

These interviews are presented by some as confirmation the alleged attack occurred and are promoted alongside a drum beat of claims that Syria's remaining (allegedly never declared) stockpile of chemical weapons is either being destroyed by Israeli airstrikes or, otherwise, must be secured by international inspectors before extremist groups get hold of it. Given that Western governments have repeatedly claimed the Syrian government 'gassed its own people' and, moreover, use this allegation in order to legitimate their 'regime'-change efforts, a huge amount rests upon maintenance of this narrative.

The new interviews, however, do not confirm anything of the sort and, most importantly, do not resolve fundamental scientific issues revealed by OPCW investigators who called out the corruption of their Fact Finding Mission (FFM) investigation in which scientific analysis was suppressed and manipulated.

Bearing False Witness?

In fact, witness reports regarding the events of 7 April 2018 have always been contradictory and inconsistent. For example, at the time, The Guardian newspaper reported medical staff who claimed that it was a nerve agent (such as sarin), not chlorine gas, that had been used in the attack: “We knew what chlorine did, but these were convulsions, foaming and something that had affected the central nervous system”. One year later, investigator James Harkin reported doctors who claimed that “there were symptoms indicative of organic phosphorus compounds in the sarin gas category” and that observed symptoms included 'heavy foaming from the mouth and nose and burning of the corneas ... (which) ... “do not resemble chlorine attack symptoms.” Later, and as we shall see shortly, when the FFM chemical analyses were completed, it was confirmed that no traces of nerve agent were found in either blood samples or in any other materials gathered from the site of the alleged attack.

Image 2 ‘PR’ shot released by White Helmets showing a White Helmet ‘first responder’ carrying deceased child in an apartment building at which a chlorine gas cylinder had apparently landed on a roof balcony.

Testimony regarding hospital scenes linked to the alleged attack, which showed large numbers of people being hosed down with water, has also always been subject to contradictory claims. These scenes involved members of the so-called White Helmets, a 'first responder' organisation set up by a former British military officer James le Mesurier (now deceased) and which receives substantial funding from the US and UK governments. It is a matter now of record that the White Helmets played a key role in supplying information to OPCW FFM missions and one of its directors, Emma le Mesurier (née Winberg), described these activities in detail back in 2018. Winberg herself has been identified by journalist Shannon Van Sant as having worked for MI6 'several times'.

Back in 2018, the Russian Federation controversially brought alleged witnesses and medical staff associated with the hospital scenes to the Hague in order to relay what had happened. It is some of these doctors who are now claiming that they had been coerced at the time. Conversely, BBC producer Riam Dalati, has stated that, based on his 6 months of research and interviews with White Helmets and activists, he can prove beyond doubt the hospital scenes were staged. Reporting from on the ground at the time by Eva Bartlett and Vanessa Beeley relayed testimony that no chemical attack had occurred.

More generally, the original interim report, suppressed by senior OPCW management, recorded clearly that two competing narratives emerged from two groups of alleged witnesses. One group, interviewed in Turkey and who were effectively under the control of opposition groups, claimed the alleged attack had occurred. The other group, interviewed in Damascus and under the control, effectively, of the Syrian government, stated that no attack had occurred. The suppressed original interim report made clear that witness claims could therefore not be presumed to be factual (Original Interim Report, pp: 20-21).

In fact, OPCW investigations require witness testimony to be corroborated in recognition of the fact that, whilst valuable, it can also be subject to bias whilst, perhaps most importantly in wartime, coercion and incentivization might be employed in order to influence testimonies (BG21 Review, p. 96). However, in the case of the OPCW final FFM report, which claimed, based in part on witness testimony, that there were 'reasonable grounds' the alleged attack had occurred, no attempt was made to corroborate the witness testimonies and, instead, the Turkey-based witnesses were presumed to be true whilst the Damascus witnesses were, to all intents and purposes, discarded (BG21 Review, pp: 98-99).

This failure to corroborate the claims made by witnesses was serious and goes straight to the heart of a key scientific question identified by the original OPCW team investigating the incident. This questions relates to the claims made at the time of the alleged attack that symptoms and signs of nerve agent were observed.

The 43 Dead Civilians at Location 2

Late in the evening, on the day of the alleged attack, film of dead civilians was circulated on social media. The film had been recorded by the White Helmets 'first responders' and it showed a large number of deceased civilians in an apartment block (labelled Location 2 by the OPCW investigation team) which, on its third-floor balcony, a yellow chlorine gas cylinder had apparently landed and then became poised above a hole in the ceiling-roof (see images 3 and 4).

Images 3 & 4: Cylinder head showing minimal damage and which is actually incompatible with the damage to the metal bar reinforced ceiling seen in the image below. See pages 119-135 of the BG21 Review for detailed discussion.

Some of the deceased were gathered in piles and could be seen on the ground floor, the first floor, in a stairwell, and also outside on the street. In addition, many of the victims displayed copious amounts of what appeared to be a foamy discharge from the mouth and nose. None of the victims appeared to have been attempting to escape from the building. Commenting at the time, the UK chemical weapons expert Alexander Hay stated that the scenes were more commensurate with a nerve agent attack in which the civilians would have been rapidly killed.

Image 5: Images of deceased gathered in a pile, taken by White Helmets 'first responders', uploaded by White Helmets/activists.

Image 6: Profuse foam discharge appearing after a body had been moved.

Claims made by witnesses interviewed by the FFM also appeared to support the occurrence of a nerve agent attack with some claiming they had seen people foaming at the mouth and rapidly collapsing whilst others referred to large number of decedents in basements and across a wide area (BG21 Review, pp: 80-85, see also here). The hallmark nerve agent symptom of constricted pupils was also reported by some of the alleged witnesses. Only a powerful and lethal nerve agent is likely to have had such an impact. At least for the first few days after the incident, the US government told reporters that they had intelligence showing that blood samples from the victims of the alleged attack indicated the presence of nerve agent. These reports were, however, soon to disappear and no further mention was made by the US government of these blood test results.

The Bombshell Findings: no deaths by nerve agent and no deaths by chlorine gas

When the analysis results came back from the lab, and to the great surprise of the investigation team, no traces of nerve agent, either in blood samples taken from alleged survivors or materials collected from Location 2, had been detected. In short, there was no evidence this was a nerve agent attack. The only other candidate for the alleged chemical weapons attack was chlorine gas, presumably coming from the yellow chlorine cylinder found poised over a hole on the balcony. However, this was not consistent with the scenes filmed at Location 2 because, unlike a nerve agent, chlorine gas is not normally associated with rapid collapse and death, whilst those exposed would usually readily escape any gas cloud by running away as soon as they encounter the uncomfortable effects of chlorine gas (BG21 Review, pp: 66-67). In order to obtain further expert opinion on the inexplicable scenes observed and reported at Location 2, the FFM team sought expert advice from a group of NATO chemical warfare experts, two toxicologists and one forensic pathologist) (BG21 Review, pp: 65-66). Their advice was clear.

The observations of rapid collapse and foam discharge were not considered by the experts to be explainable through reference to chlorine gas. If killed by chlorine gas damaging the victims’ lungs and leading to the oral and nasal foamy discharge, some length of time would have been necessary for this to occur, during which there would have been time to escape, and the victims would therefore not have collapsed on the spot, gathering in piles (BG21 Review, pp: 66-67). If, alternatively, the victims were killed through, for example, asphyxiation via extremely high concentrations of chlorine gas, there would not have been time for pulmonary oedema, leading to profuse discharge at the mouth and nose to have occurred (BG21 Review, pp: 66-67). In a nutshell, the scenes presented at Location 2 made little sense. The suppressed original interim report spelled this out:

The inconsistency between the presence of a putative chlorine-containing toxic chocking or blood agent on the one hand and the testimonies of alleged witnesses and symptoms observed from video footage and photographs, on the other, cannot be rationalised (Original Interim report, p. 3).

These bombshell findings – that the deaths were not by nerve agent, nor by chlorine gas – still have, to this day, major implications. In addition to the scenes at Location 2, with dozens of civilians gathered in piles having apparently dropped dead on the spot, no longer making any sense, alleged witnesses accounts reporting nerve agent-like symptoms – foaming at the mouth and constricted pupils – could not be corroborated and, in terms of the physical evidence collected by the investigation team, could no longer be said to be accurate.

The same applied to those alleged witnesses claiming to have seen many dead in the basement at Location 2. No photographic evidence was ever presented to support these claims and there was no way of rationalising how anyone could have been killed in the basement (which was not directly connected to the main apartment building) or across a wide area where any concentrations of gas would be much less than inside the building: victims could have simply run up and out of the basement in order to reach cleaner air.

Rather than respond objectively and rationally to these empirical findings, OPCW senior management embarked upon a cover up. First, the meeting with the NATO chemical warfare experts was scrubbed from the record and no reference made to it in its final report (BG21 Review: pp: 70-72). At the same time, the water was muddied by ambiguously referring to the fact that no chemical could be matched to the observed symptoms, thereby leaving the possibility, contra the NATO toxicologists' conclusion, that chlorine gas might have killed the civilians (BG21 Review, p. 72). Later, when the OPCW’s IIT (Investigation and Identification Team) issued its attribution report in 2023, blaming the Syrian government for the alleged attack, obfuscation and scientific fraud were employed.

First, and as investigative journalist Aaron Mate explains, the IIT avoided asking their single “new” toxicologist whether the rapid and profuse foaming was consistent with chlorine gas poisoning. Second, the IIT report creates the misleading impression that the deaths at Location 2 were caused by the civilians being trapped upstairs because of extremely high chlorine gas concentrations blocking the stairwell when, in fact, most were found on the ground floor or outside on the street (BG21 Review, p: 73-76). The matter of reported deaths in basements, which directly contradicts the IITs explanation for the deaths as being caused by being trapped upstairs, is dealt with by ignoring these claims entirely. Third, the IIT report attempted to mislead the reader into believing chlorine gas can cause rapid and profuse foaming by referencing two scientific papers which, in fact, made no such claim (BG21 Review, pp: 75-76). Since 2023, the OPCW Scientific Advisory Board and senior management have refused to respond to these documented instances of censorship and fraud.

What Really Happened to the Civilians at Location 2?

If they were not killed by nerve agent or chlorine, then something else must have happened to the civilians at Douma. This was tentatively noted in the suppressed original interim report which stated the possibility that the ‘fatalities resulted from a non-chemical related incident’. Unfortunately, an attempt by an OPCW Inspector, Brendan Whelan, to pursue this line of inquiry was stopped. In photographs of the deceased, strange markings on the face and around the eyes had been noted, whilst some of the victims had wet hair. Neither of these features were linked to nerve agent or chorine gas, but they were clearly there. Efforts to establish contact with a forensic pathologist, who might have shed light on these features and what they could tell us about the cause of death, were effectively closed down. Somebody within the OPCW did not want the cause of death to be examined too closely.

Dozens of dead civilians piled into an apartment block, and with no scientifically established cause of death, should ring alarm bells. Those bells ought to ring louder when those responsible for managing the scene and then burying the bodies were under the control of Jaish Al-Islam, the extremist group who were in charge of Douma at the time.

BBC producer Riam Dalati describes Jaish al-Islam as having 'ruled Douma with an iron fist. They co-opted activists, doctors and humanitarians with fear and intimidation', and, along with White Helmets, are now back in Douma and in control. Jaish al-Islam also stand accused of having carried out many atrocities. It is also now known that James le Mesurier himself was involved with the organising of the Turkey-based witnesses.

Separate from the specifics of the OPCW FFM, much ambiguity surrounds the number of victims and the circumstances of their burial. The suppressed original interim report stated that two witnesses reported 150-300 total dead (Original Interim Report, p. 24, figure 4) and that 'victims of the alleged chemical attack were buried in a mass grave with other casualties’ (Original Interim Report, p. 23). Additionally, in a 2019 interview with ‘civil society leaders’ from Douma it is claimed, according to the translation, that there were 187 bodies found in ‘bunkers’.

Regarding burial, the suppressed original interim report noted that the ‘SCD’ [‘Syrian Civil Defence’/White Helmets] were in charge of burying the deceased in co-ordination with the local council. Most of the witnesses reported to be unaware of the location of the burial sites’ (Original Interim Report, p. 21). In the final OPCW report, however, this was altered to saying 'Prior to the military campaign, the SCD was in charge of burying the deceased in coordination with the local council. A number of witnesses reported that they were unaware of the location of the burial sites'. This alteration obfuscates whether or not the SCD were responsible for burying the deceased.

It is also interesting that, at the time of the alleged attack in Douma, a British journalist, Jose Ensor, reported that those responsible for the burial were ‘local residents and members of Jaish al-Islam [the militant opposition group in Douma]’ and that the intent was to preserve evidence. Raed Saleh (Head of the ‘SCD’/White Helmets) was interviewed by the BBC and he stated [according to the BBC translation]:

The dead were buried in one place. It was a mass grave. It wasn’t the first time we buried people like that. Because when these attacks happen, we don’t have enough cemeteries all the time. There are too many dead. We didn’t gather evidence from the bodies themselves. We took samples from things like animal corpse and clothes and other effects. We told investigators location of the grave and met with investigators at the Turkish border to hand over the evidence we had gathered.

Any serious re-investigation into what happened at Location 2 would start with the scientific findings of the original OPCW investigation team, which confirm there is no evidence of a nerve agent or chlorine chemical weapons attack. It could then proceed to investigate exactly who buried the victims, and indeed how many, in a mass grave The focus should be on the alleged witnesses, including the White Helmets 'first responders' detailing the course of events and explaining their actions. Both the local elders and the controlling Jaish-al Islam need to be carefully questioned. Questioning should also extend to those linked to the White Helmets and who are reportedly connected with the British intelligence services i.e. Emma le Mesurier.

Another essential question needing to be answered is how the US government came into possession of blood test results showing a nerve agent when the OPCW FFM blood test results showed no such indications. If the this is true, and the blood samples were taken from the deceased at Douma, it means they were exposed to sarin nerve agent somewhere other than Location 2 at which no traces of nerve agent were ever found. And if the deceased were poisoned with sarin somewhere other than Location 2, the case made by the OPCW and its Western backers, that this was a chlorine gas attack involving the two yellow cylinders and carried out by the Syrian government, evaporates.

The Legacy of the OPCW Coverup

We are yet to have the truth of what happened to the civilians at Douma clearly and fully understood by the international community. This is because actors within the OPCW, along with their patrons and sponsors in Western governments, have aggressively and relentlessly suppressed OPCW scientists, as well as anyone else raising what are eminently reasonable questions, and issued a series of demonstrably flawed reports. These actions have served to obfuscate the simple fact that no scientifically valid analysis has ever been provided that can explain the deaths at Location 2 as being the result of a chemical weapons attack, whether nerve agent or chlorine gas. Likewise, no explanation has ever been offered for those witness claims of there being deceased in basements and across a wide area. Moreover, whilst Western governments have always placed the spotlight on the Syrian government, no equivalent scrutiny has ever been applied to the extremist group in control of Douma and the so-called White Helmets who filmed the various scenes and helped bury the victims in a mass grave. It is time for a full, impartial and objective investigation to be allowed, and for the name-calling, spin and deception to end.

There is, of course, something much larger at stake. As noted at the start, the proclaimed legitimacy of the West's 13 year 'regime change’ war rests in large part on demonizing the Assad government through allegations about its use of chemical weapons. The West's dirty war, in alliance with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Israel, involved the sponsorship of extremist Salafist groups, well known for human rights abuses and atrocities. Israel itself, the West's key ally in the region, is continuing a genocide against the Palestinian people. Western governments need to try to bury these truths, and directing attention toward claims that the Syrian government systematically deployed chemical weapons is one way of doing this.

At the same time, the ways in which the OPCW has been bent toward the will of Western governments, well documented in the case of the two OPCW whistleblowers, highlights how the organisation has become a major threat to international peace and security. This is because the OPCW can be used in order to 'confirm' false allegations against a country and, and in doing so, becomes a trigger mechanism for war. Given the perilous state of relations between the West and the rest of the world, the stakes have never been higher.

*Dr Piers Robinson works alongside José Bustani (first Director General of the OPCW), Hans von Sponeck (former Assistant UN Secretary General) and Professor Richard Falk (Princeton) representing the issues raised by OPCW staff regarding the Douma investigation. Their report issued to the MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) is available here https://berlingroup21.org/front-matter-and-introduction. He writes here in his personal capacity.