September 23, 2020 Working Group

Email correspondence with Chloe Hadjimatheou, Senior Reporter BBC Current Affairs, 24 July to 17 August 2020

Summary

  • This note reproduces an email correspondence with Chloe Hadjimatheou, a BBC journalist who approached me in July 2020 seeking a interview for a radio series about James Le Mesurier and the White Helmets. She indicated that she had already talked to Le Mesurier’s associates.
  • I agreed to answer questions but began by asking her if she had asked Raed Al-Saleh, described as the leader of the White Helmets, why he had never revealed the location of the bodies of the victims of the Douma incident on 7 April 2018, despite having told Reuters on 18 April 2018 that he had given the location to the Fact-Finding Mission of the OPCW.
    • Raed Al-Saleh has not responded to enquiries on this matter from the Working Group, It is our understanding that the location of the bodies is still unknown to the Syrian government.
  • Ms Hadjimatheou replied two weeks later that Raed Al-Saleh had told her that the bodies were buried in a mass grave within 24 hours in accordance with the wishes of the families, and that the location of this grave is known to the families and to the Syrian authorities.
    • This contradicts the testimony of the only witness on record who has identified a relative among the Douma victims. This witness reported in 2019 that “the fighters” had refused to deliver the body of his brother to the family, and that the he did not know the location of the grave.
  • Ms Hadjimatheou did not answer a specific question about whether she had asked Raed Al-Saleh for the (supposedly widely known) location of this mass grave, and instead came up with a series of evasive answers, before avoiding the question altogether:
    • “I didn’t ask for coordinates – that wouldn’t mean much to me and I don’t know if Raed would know that either.”
    • “I suggest you call someone in Douma – a local journalist for example, and ask them to tell you where the grave is”
    • “Can I suggest you make direct contact with Raed Saleh?”
  • A reader of this correspondence could reasonably conclude that on this matter Raed Al-Saleh has something to hide, and further that Ms Hadjimatheou is for some reason colluding with him by helping him to avoid having to respond.

Introduction

From June 2020 onwards, several people associated with the Working Group were approached by BBC journalists Chloe Hadjimatheou and Tom Wright seeking interviews for a radio series about James Le Mesurier (JLM) and the White Helmets to be broadcast in November 2020. They stated that they were “interested in the perspective of the Working Group”. They had already interviewed JLM’s associates including leaders of the White Helmets.

Those who were approached reported to us that Ms Hadjimatheou was not serious about investigating the questions that have arisen about the role of the White Helmets, and was simply trawling for quotes that could be used to discredit the Working Group, trying to put words in their mouths.

On 24 July Ms Hadjimatheou approached me by email. I informed her that for the moment I would communicate only in writing, and would answer questions only in relation to referenced direct quotation of something that I had written or said.

The background to my question about the location of the bodies is as follows:

  • The bodies of the victims seen in images on the night of 7 April 2018 were removed the next day by the White Helmets to a collection point at the hospital, and not seen again.
  • On 18 April 2018 Raed Al-Saleh, described as the head of the White Helmets, told Reuters that he had given the location of the graves to the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission in Turkey.
  • On 21 April 2018 Josie Ensor reported in the Daily Telegraph that the bodies had been buried secretly at night by Jaish al-Islam fighters in a mass grave that was then concealed “to preserve the chemical evidence”.
  • On 26 April 2018 the OPCW requested that the Syrian government provide access to the graves, but plans for exhumation were halted when the first laboratory results were received on 22 May. The OPCW did not confirm that they had been given the location, and have refused to answer questions on this matter.
  • Journalists who are in contact with Syrian officials have informed us that the Syrian government does not know the location of the bodies.
  • The only record of a relative identifying any of the victims seen in images is an interview in 2019 with a witness who identified one of the victims as his brother, killed elsewhere in an artillery strike. This witness stated that the body had been removed by “the fighters” and that he did not know the location of the grave.

As explained in the final message of this correspondence, Ms Hadjimatheou’s approach provided an opportunity to investigate this question further.

The text of the email messages below is reproduced exactly as sent and received. Addresses and phone numbers have been removed, and the correspondence has been reformatted in HTML with tagged subheadings for accessibility.

Shortly after this correspondence Ms Hadjimatheou and her researcher Tom Wright began cold-calling my university colleagues on their cellphones in an attempt to trawl for “off the record” quotes that could be used to discredit me.

I make no further comment, but leave it to the reader to assess what Ms Hadjimatheou is up to.

Email correspondence

On 24/07/2020 17:58, Chloe Hadjimatheou wrote

Dear Professor McKeigue,

I’m a journalist making a radio series for BBC radio 4 about James Le Mesurier and the White Helmets. I’m interested in some of the presentations you’ve given on this subject which I have read and listened to online. Could you spare a few minutes to chat to me over the telephone?

Yours gratefully,

Chloe

BBC Current Affairs

Chloe Hadjimatheou

Senior Reporter/ Producer

BBC New Broadcasting House Portland Place London W1A 1AA

From: Paul McKeigue, Sent 24 July 2020 18:41

To: Chloe Hadjimatheou

Dear Ms Hadjimatheou

I am sure you understand that in the present climate I am cautious about communicating with journalists.

If you would like to ask me questions about anything I have written, or any presentation I have given, please provide referenced direct quotations, together with your questions, and I will respond in writing to each question.

Depending on how that goes, I may be prepared to talk further.

I have one question for you. I understand that you have interviewed close associates of James Le Mesurier. Did you manage to interview Raed Al-Saleh? And if so, did you ask him why he has never revealed the location of the mass grave in which the victims of the Douma incident were secretly buried? On 18 April 2018 he told Reuters that he had given the location to the Fact-Finding Mission in Gaziantep. We have never managed to get him to answer questions on this, but you as a BBC journalist might have more chance.

Paul McKeigue

On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 at 20:03, Chloe Hadjimatheou wrote:

Hi Professor McKeigue,

Thanks for agreeing to engage with me – even in written form for now.

Yes, it’s true that I did interview White Helmets including Raed Salah and other associates of James Le Mesurier. Can I ask you whether you have put that particular question to him directly?

I will get back to you shortly with more specific questions about your research.

Thanks.

Chloe

From Paul McKeigue Sent Fri, 24 Jul, 21:50

To: Chloe Hadjimatheou

Piers Robinson asked Raed Al-Saleh directly on twitter

https://twitter.com/PiersRobinson1/status/1166652948719558656

I have no contact details for him, so I asked the convenor of the Lancet-AUB Commission on Syria (of which Raed al-Saleh is a panel member) to pass a message to him. There was no reply.

On Thu, 30 Jul 2020 at 19:28, Chloe Hadjimatheou wrote:

Hi Prof McKeigue,

originally I had not planned to go into the Douma incident too much in my series which is more focused on James Le Mesurier but having read all the reports surrounding it and seeing the impact the whistle blowers have had on some people’s view of the incident and the war more broadly I think I would be amiss not to spend some time in the series examining this.

I have already interviewed Raed Salah but have asked him if I can reinterview him in light of the things I have read so that I can ask him directly about this specific incident and more broadly about the White Helmets role in providing witnesses and samples.

I will ask him the question you want answered.

You said you would be willing to engage with me in email form and so I have a few questions of my own. I obviously have only heard second hand about ‘Alex’ but I have read your publications and the OPCW report. – These are honest questions in an attempt to fully understand your understanding of all the evidence you have assessed.

  • What was your feeling about the Douma incident BEFORE the OPCW report was published? Did you have a sense that it wasn’t what it seemed? Based on what evidence?
  • Do you believe that the Syrian state military has been responsible for any CW attacks in this particular conflict?
  • Could it have been possible that the canisters WERE tampered with but that the chemical attack happened non-the less? In other words could it have just been members of the public or local wannabe journalists moving things to get a better shot? Which might explain the Bellingcat photos?

*You say chlorine is not strong enough to have killed individuals so quickly and with the symptoms they exhibited in the photos – can you be sure that a type of chlorine intended to kill would not be far more lethal than anything we may have seen in industrial accidents?

*When you mention a ‘gas chamber’ what kind of thing do you have in mind?

*Isn’t the idea of a gas chamber a bit of a leap based on the evidence you have?

  • Do you have any reason to believe the WH might have staged other CW incidents?

*If you are right and the WH are murdering people and staging incidents wouldn’t it involve a large number of people, all willing to kill women and children in terrible ways? How could they ensure the silence of so many people?

  • In your presentation it is implied that James Le Mesurier, as head of Mayday and working very closely with the WH would have been complicit in this staged event – is that right?
  • I wonder how you square the fact that you believe he was working for British secret services and at the same time trying to trick the British government into going to war?

*Do you believe the WH hold women and children prisoners? What is your evidence for this?

*If these victims were actually murdered and the scene staged wouldn’t it have been hard to hide from everyone? Wouldn’t any journalists or scientists coming across such evidence have wanted to blow the whistle? Indeed wouldn’t a Syrian wannabe journalist (of which there are so so many in this conflict operating in rebel areas) want to make his name by reporting this monsterous mass murder?

*If Raed Salah does tell us the location of the victims’ grave what will you do with this information? How does it help move the evidence on?

Of course I am happy to talk over the phone if you ever want to take your engagement one step further. It seems a shame that you refuse to engage with me… I would assume that if you are confident of your findings you would not mind being challenged.

Lastly I thought you might be interested to know I put in a FOI with the FCO for the Grant Thornton forensic report into Mayday’s finances but I was turned down. I have been leaked some sections of it beyond what is on the Mayday page. I understand Martin Chulov plans to publish a long feature next week about JLM and will cover the financial story. I believe he has seen the same leaked sections that I have. I have haven’t seen his article and don’t know what he plans to write.

Thank you.

Chloe

From: Paul McKeigue Sent 30 July 2020 21:34

To: Chloe Hadjimatheou

Dear Ms Hadjimatheou

I refer you to my reply of 24 July in which I stated:-

“If you would like to ask me questions about anything I have written, or any presentation I have given, please provide referenced direct quotations, together with your questions, and I will respond in writing to each question.”

Please put your questions in this format. It is not useful to ask questions about my “feelings” or about what I “believe” – I am concerned with the evaluation of evidence, which does not depend upon feelings or beliefs but on assessing how competing hypotheses predict the observations.

On Wed, 12 Aug 2020 at 10:38, Chloe Hadjimatheou wrote:

Prof McKeigue,

I wanted to let you know that I spoke to Raed Salah and I asked him about the grave for you.

He said that the bodies were buried in accordance with Islamic principles, as was desired by the dead people’s family and local imams – meaning they were buried within 24 hours. This meant they had to be buried in one location, in a mass grave. He told me that the location is known about locally, to the families who attended the funerals to the OPCW and to the Syrian authorities who are now in control of that area and who were present when the FFM gathered all evidence. I hope that’s helpful to you.

I’ve put my questions to you in the format requested below.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Chloe

CH’s questions

  1. Portcullis House, 2020: “That’s one reason why exhumations should have been done, even several months after the incident, if the graves could be located. DNA could still be recovered from bone marrow, and this would have allowed the reconstruction of genetic relationships between the victims and any living relatives who came forward. It would still be worth doing that if the graves could be found.”
  • In your assessment, why did the Syrian government take a month to reply to the OPCW’s request to visit the grave with a view to exhuming the bodies? What’s the most likely hypothesis?
  • Have you asked the Syrian government whether they have since exhumed the bodies and done autopsies themselves? If not, why?
  1. RE the Khan Sheikhoun incident in 2017 you wrote on Prof Tim Hayward’s blog in Dec 2017::“The weight of evidence favouring the hypothesis of a managed massacre over a chemical attack has obvious implications also for the role of the White Helmets in this incident.”
  • What specifically is the ‘obvious implication’? Should we infer that the White Helmets are responsible for carrying out a managed massacre? What, specifically, do you consider their involvement to have been and what evidence of this can you share with me?
  • In light of your above assessment of the 2017 incident, what was your sense of the Douma incident prior to the OPCW publishing its report? Did you already consider it likely that the incident was staged and that the White Helmets may have been involved?
  1. Portcullis House 2020: “Hypothesis 3. Victims were captives killed in a gas chamber, whose bodies were brought to Location 2”
  • When you say gas chamber, what kind of thing do you have in mind?
  • What evidence is there of any party in the Syrian war using gas chambers?
  • What can you tell me about the victims? Who killed them and where did they come from?
  • Did you consider the possibility that they did die from a chlorine attack on the time and date that the OPCW concluded an attack happened but that their bodies were then moved before the photos were taken – possibly by local people who didn’t know better and without malice?
  1. Ibid: “Staging would have required the active participation of the White Helmets, set up by the late James Le Mesurier (a former military intelligence officer) with funding from the UK and other governments.”
  • Specifically, what does ‘active participation’ mean? What did it entail?
  • In your assessment, was James le Mesurier an active participant in the staging of chemical weapons attacks? If so, please can you specify what this entailed and what evidence do you have?
  • In the above assessment you imply that he did so at the behest of the UK and other governments. What evidence do you have of state involvement?
  1. Ibid: “We have learned that from 2015 onwards Le Mesurier worked closely in Turkey with Team Alpha of the Fact-Finding Mission to select White Helmets as “witnesses” to be interviewed by the FFM. With such a well-placed source, it is all the more inexcusable that UK intelligence agencies got it wrong.”
  • In your assessment, why was Le Mesurier both working as a source for the intelligence agencies whilst also trying to trick them and the government into going to war?
  1. Ibid: “The only person who has investigated whether neighbours at Location 2 knew the victims is Maxim Grigoriev, head of a Russian NGO The Foundation for the Study of Democracy, who presented his findings at the UN Security Council on Monday evening 20th January 2020. He has reported that people in Douma did not know any of the victims shown in the images, except for one man whose brother reported that he had been killed in an artillery strike.”
  • What’s your assessment of this organisation? Do you consider it to be a reliable source of information? If so, what are the qualities that qualify it to make balanced and accurate assessments?
  • What more can you tell me about this organisation? Where does it get it’s funding come from?

Thank you ahead of time for your clarifications on all these points.

From: Paul McKeigue Sent 12 August 2020 15:19

To: Chloe Hadjimatheou

I’ll reply to your questions tomorrow.

Did Raed al-Saleh give you the coordinates of the mass grave of the Douma victims? If the location is known to the Syrian authorities, there’s no reason for him not to make it public.

On Wed, 12 Aug 2020 at 15:32, Chloe Hadjimatheou wrote:

Hi Paul,

I didn’t ask for coordinates – that wouldn’t mean much to me and I don’t know if Raed would know that either. I assume the FFM was shown the grave. I suggest you call someone in Douma – a local journalist for example, and ask them to tell you where the grave is. That is what I would do. It seems to be public knowledge so it shouldn’t be too hard to find out.

Out of interest are you wanting that information in order to suggest exhuming the bodies? If so you would need to get permission from the Syrian government so perhaps asking them where the grave is might be a quicker way around this?

I look forward to getting your replies.

Thank you!

From: Paul McKeigue, Sent 12 August 2020 16:40

To: Chloe Hadjimatheou

Coordinates are easy to use – simply click on the location in Google Maps and the address bar will show the coordinates. Anyone else can then find the same location by pasting the address bar into a browser.

Raed al Saleh told Reuters in April 2018 that he had given the coordinates to the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission in Turkey. So he must know the coordinates.

When I enquired last year, my understanding was that neither the Syrian government nor the OPCW inspectors who had deployed to Damascus knew the location of the bodies.

The story that Raed al-Saleh has given you – that the bodies were buried within 24 hours in accordance with Islamic custom and the wishes of the families – is inconsistent with the story given to Beth McKernan [correction: the article linked below was written by Josie Ensor] that the bodies were buried secretly at night and the mass grave concealed in a desperate bid to “preserve chemical evidence”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/21/bodies-douma-gas-victims-secretly-buried-desperate-bid-preserve/

Maybe you can ask Raed al-Saleh one more time: what are the coordinates of the mass grave? In a murder investigation, someone who has hidden the bodies and refuses to reveal their location would usually come under suspicion. Surely you’re interested in getting to the bottom of this?

On Thu, 13 Aug 2020 at 13:07, Chloe Hadjimatheou wrote:

OK. Let me see what I can find out.

Look forward to seeing your answers….

From: Paul McKeigue, Sent 13 August 2020 20:02

To: Chloe Hadjimatheou

See response to your first question below. I think you can now see why I have to insist on written communications so that I can fact-check your questions against primary sources

I’ll respond to your other questions, but first I’d like to hear if you are able to get Raed Saleh or anyone else to reveal the location of the Douma bodies. This is relevant to one of your other questions.

CH Question 1

“In your assessment, why did the Syrian government take a month to reply to the OPCW’s request to visit the grave with a view to exhuming the bodies [of Douma victims]?”

Answer to CH Question 1

Your question is based on a false assertion: the Syrian government replied nine days after the OPCW’s request. A timeline is given below, with links to original sources.

Though the Final Report in 2019 insinuated that the Syrian government was responsible for delaying exhumation, the OPCW repudiated this interpretation when challenged by the Russian delegation.

Timeline

  • 8 April 2018: date of burial of bodies according to Raed Saleh (“within 24 hours” of the incident on 7 April)
  • 18 April 2018: Raed Saleh told Reuters that he had given the location of the graves to the OPCW
  • 26 April 2018: OPCW Technical Secretariat requests access to the graves (Annex 3, Final Report):

Note Verbale (NV/ODG/214827/18) from TS to the Permanent Representative of the SAR to the OPCW, requesting information and assistance from the Government of the SAR in getting the FFM access to the remains of any interred persons whose death might have been associated with the alleged incident on 7 April, including the exhumation of human remains.

  • 4 May 2018: Syrian government replies (Annex 3, Final Report):

Technical Secretariat receives Note Verbale (No. 45) from the SAR replying to the Technical Secretariat s request in Note Verbale (NV/ODG/214827/18) to exhume bodies for the purpose of taking bio samples

  • 22 May 2018: FFM halts plans for exhumations when the first lab results were received (original draft of Interim Report):

When the analytical results of the first round of environmental and biological samples were received and no nerve agents or their degradation products were identified in either environmental or biological samples, the plans for exhumations were halted as the risk of not finding substantive evidence of the alleged attack was now considered high and proceeding with the exhumations presented a risk to benefit ratio that was no longer acceptable.

  • 6 July 2018: Interim Report of the FFM conceals the fact that plans for exhumation had been abandoned.
  • 1 March 2019: Final Report of the FFM insinuates that the Syrian Arab Republic was responsible for delaying exhumations until they would no longer be informative:

7.8 The Syrian Arab Republic replied in Note Verbale No. 45 on 4 May 2018 and enumerated the conditions to be met in order to conduct the exhumation. With due consideration of the time elapsed since the alleged incident, the possibility was eventually not explored any further.

  • 26 April 2019: Russian delegation complains about this insinuation, and makes clear that it was the OPCW Technical Secretariat that had failed to follow up on the response received from the Syrian government:

Question VII. Paragraph 7.8 implicitly blames the Syrian Arab Republic for the fact that the bodies were not exhumed from their graves. The Technical Secretariat Sent Note Verbale NV/ODG/214827/18, dated 26 April 2018 and the Syrian Arab Republic replied, through Note Verbale 45, dated 4 May 2018, that it would continue to cooperate with the FFM and it was ready to provide all that is necessary to facilitate the work. However, the issue of exhumation is particularly sensitive and requires numerous procedures involving various entities (judicial, religious, medical). The Technical Secretariat, however, did not follow up on this issue with the Syrian National Authority, as mentioned in the same paragraph.

  • 21 May 2019: The Technical Secretariat replied that:

Answer 7.1: No blame was understood or implied by the FFM in paragraph 7.8 of the report.

On Fri, 14 Aug 2020 at 20:44, Chloe Hadjimatheou wrote:

Dear Paul,

Thanks so much for your response to one of my questions – it was useful to have clarification. It would be great if you could respond to the rest of the questions too.

Can I suggest you make direct contact with Raed Salah? I had not ever had any communication with him before I began my research but didn’t find it difficult to connect with the White Helmets online. This seems like a more direct way to get responses to your specific questions.

Thanks,

Chloe

From: Paul McKeigue Sent 14 August 2020 21:28

To: Chloe Hadjimatheou

Dear Ms Hadjimatheou

What I provided was not “clarification” but fact-checking that I would have expected a BBC journalist to do before asking the question.

As I noted in an earlier message, Raed Saleh did not respond to a direct question from a WG member on Twitter asking about the location of the bodies.

From your last message, it is not clear whether you have asked Raed Saleh for the location of the grave. As you. unlike us, are in direct communication with him, this should be straightforward. If he refuses to tell you the location, even though he says it is well known to the Syrian government and to the families, we can draw our own conclusions.

So: did you ask Raed Saleh for the location of the grave? Yes or no? And did he answer you?

As you will see, this is relevant to answering your other questions.

On Sun, 16 Aug 2020 at 13:37, Chloe Hadjimatheou wrote:

Thank you for your reply. You have a series of questions from me to which I have not yet had replies. I am nearing a deadline and if you aren’t able to reply by August 21st then I will just have to reflect the views in your published work where relevant, which I will do accurately and fairly in my series. I will also need to mention that you declined to answer my questions.

From: Paul McKeigue, Sent Mon, 17 Aug 2020 at 16:22

Subject: Re: some questions To: Chloe Hadjimatheou, Tom Wright

Dear Ms Hadjimatheou

It is clear that you are refusing to answer whether you have asked Raed Saleh for the location of the Douma bodies. I think that anyone reading this correspondence could reasonably conclude that on this matter Raed Saleh has something to hide, and further that you are for some reason colluding with him by helping him to avoid having to respond. This I think could put you and the BBC in possible legal jeopardy if the Douma incident eventually leads to prosecution as a war crime. I suggest that you refer this to higher level for guidance. It is not clear to me if you, or your managers, realize what you have got yourself mixed up in.

I shall post this entire correspondence online in the next few days, with written responses to your remaining questions. For now I append my response to one of those questions: the one where information about the location of the Douma bodies is most relevant.

CH Question 6

[Quote from transcript of House of Commons briefing]

“The only person who has investigated whether neighbours at Location 2 knew the victims is Maxim Grigoriev, head of a Russian NGO The Foundation for the Study of Democracy, who presented his findings at the UN Security Council on Monday evening 20th January 2020. He has reported that people in Douma did not know any of the victims shown in the images, except for one man whose brother reported that he had been killed in an artillery strike.”

“What’s your assessment of this organisation? Do you consider it to be a reliable source of information? If so, what are the qualities that qualify it to make balanced and accurate assessments? What more can you tell me about this organisation? Where does it get it’s funding come from?”

Answer to CH Question 6

I expect that the Foundation for the Study of Democracy, like the BBC, is state-backed in one way or another. I might have to spell this out if I were talking to primary schoolchildren, but not for a meeting of MPs and journalists.

Maxim Grigoriev’s report, like that of any other journalist, can be evaluated without having to make any judgement of his reliability as a source. As his interviewees gave their names and addresses, and were interviewed on camera and on location, their testimony can easily be checked by other journalists. I am generally cautious about accepting eyewitness testimony concerning war crimes except where this testimony is corroborated by images.

A transcript of the testimony of the man who reported that one of the victims was his brother is below:

Qamal Alif Ustuki, 24 years old, a baker.

Question: What happened to your brother?

Answer: My brother was killed in an artillery strike. They brought his body from the hospital here, took a picture, and told he had died in a chemical attack. They brought his body here with no traces of the use of chemical weapons.

Question: Please show, where did your brother’s body lie?

Answer: Just over there. Just over there. Same street.

Question: What happened next to your brother’s body?

Answer: We approached the fighters for his body, but they refused to deliver it to us. They buried it themselves. All the bodies were taken and buried. I don’t know where.

Qamal’s testimony is corroborated by the images uploaded by opposition-linked media on the night of 7 April. The spot he points to is just outside the apartment building at Location 2 where the bodies were found. Images showed a body of an adult male at this spot that is different from the other victims at Location 2: there is no foam in the airway, his body is covered in dust, and has a red colour-coded Guedel oropharyngeal airway in his mouth indicating earlier intervention by a paramedic.

Qamal stated that the “fighters” refused to deliver his brother’s body to his family and buried it in a secret location that in 2019 was still unknown to him. This directly contradicts what Raed Saleh told you: that the bodies were buried in accordance with the wishes of the families and that the location of the grave is well known to these families and to the Syrian government.

Your communication with Raed Saleh has provided the opportunity to test which of these two accounts is true. On the hypothesis that Raed Saleh’s account is true, we can predict that when questioned directly he would provide the location of the grave and that subsequent enquiries would confirm that there is a grave at this location and that this is known to relatives. On the alternative hypothesis that Qamal’s account is true, we can predict that Raed Saleh would decline to reveal the location of the grave and that his backers would try to discourage and divert further enquiries on this point.

Your response, refusing to reveal whether you have asked Raed Saleh the location of the grave, and attempting to divert me from pursuing this line of questioning, has provided an experimental test that supports the testimony obtained in Grigoriev’s investigation and also brings Raed Saleh under suspicion for refusing to reveal the location of the bodies.

Yours sincerely

Paul McKeigue

Appendix – response to Chloe Hadjimatheou’s other questions (Q2 to Q5)

Q2. RE the Khan Sheikhoun incident in 2017 you wrote on Prof Tim Hayward’s blog in Dec 2017: “The weight of evidence favouring the hypothesis of a managed massacre over a chemical attack has obvious implications also for the role of the White Helmets in this incident.”

  • What specifically is the ‘obvious implication’? Should we infer that the White Helmets are responsible for carrying out a managed massacre? What, specifically, do you consider their involvement to have been and what evidence of this can you share with me?
  • In light of your above assessment of the 2017 incident, what was your sense of the Douma incident prior to the OPCW publishing its report? Did you already consider it likely that the incident was staged and that the White Helmets may have been involved?

Answer to Q2

I refer you to our briefing note of 16 December 2019, and specifically this passage:

Although the White Helmets are famous for videoing their activities, there were no images of a search and rescue operation from the Khan Sheikhoun incident. The first images of the incident were recorded from about 7 am onwards, showing victims being hosed down by the White Helmets outside their base in a cave complex near the town. Later they were seen laid out in morgues in the town. Images of the children who were laid out in morgues showed that several had recent head injuries. In at least two cases by arranging images in temporal sequence and matching identities it was possible to establish that they had received these head injuries after the time they were purportedly rescued by the White Helmets.

I think the implications are obvious: do you need me to spell this out? You might wish to study the video “Gasping for life” provided to CNN and the analyses here and here linking the children seen in this video to those later seen in morgues, and think carefully about what you have got yourself mixed up in.

I have evaluated evidence on the Douma incident by comparing how well competing hypotheses predict the observations: it is not useful or relevant to ask me about my “sense” of the incident.

Q3. Portcullis House 2020: “Hypothesis 3. Victims were captives killed in a gas chamber, whose bodies were brought to Location 2”

  • When you say gas chamber, what kind of thing do you have in mind?
  • What evidence is there of any party in the Syrian war using gas chambers?
  • What can you tell me about the victims? Who killed them and where did they come from?
  • Did you consider the possibility that they did die from a chlorine attack on the time and date that the OPCW concluded an attack happened but that their bodies were then moved before the photos were taken – possibly by local people who didn’t know better and without malice?

Answer to Q3

Any confined space could be used to gas captives. As noted by the panel of toxicologists at the Bundeswehr Research Institute for Protective Technologies and NBC Protection who were consulted by the OPCW, the images of the Douma victims show foamy pulmonary edema which indicates that they did not die suddenly but continued to breathe long enough for the fluid filling the lungs to become foamy. If they had not been in a confined space, most of them would have been able to escape and any fatalities would have been outnumbered by non-fatal casualties, as is typical in industrial accidents with chlorine and other gases that injure the lungs. So for Hypothesis 3 that the victims were massacred captives, it is reasonable to postulate that they were killed in a confined space.

The only visual evidence of what may have been a gas chamber in Syria is from the study “Murder in the Sun Morgue” by the late Denis O’Brien of images recorded in the old tuberculosis hospital in Kafr Batna in Ghouta on 21 August 2013. O’Brien concluded, on the basis of an extensive analysis of the images, that they showed a managed massacre of captives and suggested that the basement room that he named the “Dark Morgue”, where some victims were shown while still alive, had been used as a gas chamber.

The only victim for whom an identification by a relative has been recorded is the brother of Qamal Alif Ustuki, as described below in my response to Q6. I am puzzled that you are asking me for this information, rather than asking Raed Saleh whose organization was responsible for burying the victims and presumably recorded their identities. It is of course well documented that Jaish al-Islam were holding civilian captives, including women who were displayed in cages in the streets as human shields in 2015.

We have evaluated three hypotheses:

1H1. Victims were killed by a chlorine cylinder dropped from the air.

2H2. Bodies of victims asphyxiated while sheltering from bombardment were repurposed to stage a chemical attack (attributed to an “opposition reporter working with a team inside Syria” in James Harkin’s article)

3H3. Victims were captives killed in a gas chamber, whose bodies were brought to Location 2.

You are proposing a fourth hypothesis that is entirely new. If you would like to state this hypothesis precisely, we can evaluate how well it predicts the observations. For instance what location is postulated for the supposed chlorine attack? Did you formulate this hypothesis yourself, or was it provided to you by someone with knowledge of the incident?

Q4. Ibid: “Staging would have required the active participation of the White Helmets, set up by the late James Le Mesurier (a former military intelligence officer) with funding from the UK and other governments.”

  • Specifically, what does ‘active participation’ mean? What did it entail?
  • In your assessment, was James le Mesurier an active participant in the staging of chemical weapons attacks? If so, please can you specify what this entailed and what evidence do you have?
  • In the above assessment you imply that he did so at the behest of the UK and other governments. What evidence do you have of state involvement?

Answer to Q4

In the case of the Douma incident, images show the White Helmets were involved in removing the bodies. From what Raed Saleh told Reuters and you, it apppears that they were also involved in burying the bodies.

As for the involvement of James Le Mesurier, I refer you to our briefing note of 16 December 2019:

How much Le Mesurier knew about the planning of this incident as a managed massacre, and the role of the White Helmets in carrying it out, we do not know. It is however reasonable to state that as an experienced intelligence officer, he should have been able to assess the reliability of the testimony of the White Helmet witnesses that he selected to be interviewed by the FFM.

For evidence of UK state involvement, I refer you to our briefing note of 26 June 2019, specifically the section which begins with the following sentence:

From combining all available information, it is now clear that several entities involved in reporting and documenting alleged chemical attacks have their origin in a covert programme launched by the UK government in 2012.

Q5. Ibid: “We have learned that from 2015 onwards Le Mesurier worked closely in Turkey with Team Alpha of the Fact-Finding Mission to select White Helmets as “witnesses” to be interviewed by the FFM. With such a well-placed source, it is all the more inexcusable that UK intelligence agencies got it wrong.”

  • In your assessment, why was Le Mesurier both working as a source for the intelligence agencies whilst also trying to trick them and the government into going to war?

Answer to Q5

There is ample material on record that FCO and intelligence officials favoured military intervention in Syria from 2012 onwards: they would not have had to be tricked into supporting it. See for instance this article in the New Statesman in September 2016, in which the FCO official John Jenkins described his frustration that the US and UK had not attacked Syria in retaliation for the alleged chemical attack in Ghouta on 21 August 2013.

I remember vividly the last week of August 2013, when Assad was going to be punished for stepping over that particular “red line”. I was in Riyadh at the time and involved in seeking, on behalf of the British government, senior engagement by the Saudis in an international response, which they were willing to give. The sense of frustration when the UK and US stepped back was palpable.