BEIRUT – The main opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) Friday urged rebels be held accountable after a video purported to show opposition fighters executing Syrian soldiers. “We urge the (rebel) Free Syrian Army and the revolutionary movement on the ground to hold to account anyone who violates human rights," SNC human rights committee head Radif Mustafa said. He described the situation on the ground in Syria as “very complex. There are individual cases of revenge. “Such violations are very dangerous. Any violation damages the revolution's principles of freedom, dignity and respect for human rights." In Geneva, the UN human rights body said Friday that the video showing what appears to be rebels executing Syrian soldiers most probably reveals “war crimes" that could be used as evidence to bring the perpetrators to justice. “It is very likely that this was a war crime, another one," Rupert Colville, spokesman for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, told reporters. He was reacting to a video posted on YouTube of what appeared to be Syrian rebels beating around 10 injured soldiers before lining them up on the ground and executing them with automatic rifles. Colville said he and his colleagues had only just seen the video and that it was difficult to verify who was involved. “Like other videos of this sort, it is difficult to verify immediately... It will be examined carefully," he said. At first glance, he said, it appeared that “these were soldiers who were no longer combatants and therefore, at this point, it looks very like a war crime." In July 2012, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) defined the Syrian conflict as a civil war, meaning the Geneva convention on the treatment of victims of war applies. In concrete terms, this means that executing a soldier not in combat, with no means to protect himself, is considered a war crime. – Agencies
