Fake “British Scientist” from the program “Time”: OPCW report on a chemical attack in Syria - a politically motivated lie

In the program “Time” on Channel One, another sensational plot appeared about last year’s chemical attack in Syria. On the channel’s website, the plot of the correspondent of Ivan the Beneficial is entitled “The British expert claims that the OPCO knew about the staged gas attack in the Syrian Duma.” The plot says :

“An international level scandal: the organization to prohibit chemical weapons, most likely from the very beginning, knew that the gas attack in the Syrian city of the Duma was staged. This follows from the document for official use, which got into the network.

Pierce Robinson, a British professor who devoted himself to studying propaganda methods during the Civil War in Syria, holds in his hands, as he says, the previously not published engineering conclusion of the OPCO about the allegedly chemical attack in the city of Duma in April 2018. Conclusions contained on 15 sheets are a real sensation.

“Judging by the deformation of the cylinder, at the time of the collision with the roof, it should have been in a horizontal position and could not break through the ceiling at an angle. The hole is not large enough,” explains the member of the working group in Syria, propaganda and media Pierce Robinson.

The diagram from the document clearly shows that the plumage cylinder simply will not pass into the hole in the ceiling. The document for official use is dated February 27, 2019. And on March 1, the OPCHU official report was published with the evaluation of events in the Duma. And there is nothing like that in it. It carefully says that the cylinders allegedly could be reset from the unidentified height. That is, Assad is to blame.

But what the engineers write: “In general, based on observations made at the locations of the cylinders, as well as subsequent analysis, it is possible to assume with the highest probability that both cylinders were not discarded from the aircraft, but most likely they were brought manually.”

“You have people in the place who work on the report. And they do not come to the conclusion that you need. You attract other people who may give the right answer. The question is: do we deal with the situation when political pressure has been exerted in order for the organization to issue the right conclusion?” - continues Pierce Robinson. "

More than two months after the publication of the final report of the OPCHU on the investigation of the circumstances of the chemical attack in the Syrian city of the Duma on the website of a certain “Working Group of Syria, Propaganda and Media”, a draft of the internal document of the OPCHU appeared under the heading “Engineering Evaluation of the two cylinders discovered at the site of the incident in the Duma”. The document dated February 27, 2019 and signed by Jan Henderson concludes that chlorine cylinders could not be dropped into buildings during an air attack and were probably brought there later.

In the final report published on March 1, this version is not reflected.

On May 18, the website RT spoke about the Henderson's document, and now an expert has appeared on Channel One, confirming its authenticity. However, the expert of the First Channel Pier Robinson is not a specialist at all in either chemical weapons, or in mechanics, or in military affairs. His specialty is the theory of journalism, he is the former head of the Department of Political Journalism at the University of Sheffield. Robinson is one of the founders of the very “working group in Syria”.

The press service of the OPCW, answering The Insider and other publications addressing it for comments, indirectly confirmed the authenticity of the draft of Henderson, noting that the organization investigates the circumstances of the "unauthorized publication." But on what basis the Channel One and the British Scientist who performed on its air call the document “engineering conclusion of the OPCW” and attributed it to certain engineers in the plural, remains a mystery.

The press service statement says: “When drawing up a final report on the incident in the Duma, all information was taken into account, considered and informed. On March 1, 2019, the OPCW issued its final report about this incident signed by the General Director. ”

Jan Henderson, whose signature is under the document published by the “Working Group”, is an employee of the OPCO, the head of the group of inspectors. As indicated in another statement by the press service of the organization, it was not included in the mission to establish facts that studied the evidence of the alleged chemical attack in the Duma. This means that he did not have the opportunity to examine the place of events and he could judge them only from the photo, video and the reports of the mission.

In essence, the Henderson document is just a special opinion of the employee who did not directly participate directly in the investigation, to whom the conclusions of specialists from the mission seemed unconvincing. There is nothing strange that his arguments were not reflected in the final report, but Robinson and Channel Channel have no other grounds for accusing the facts of facts.

Robinson acts as an expert in the Russian media not for the first time: in May 2018, the RT website distributed the content of the two more professors signed by him together-geneticist Paul McCeig and sociologist David Miller-statements that the case of the poisoning of Sergey and Julia Skripyle is just an anti-Russian propaganda campaign, since existing nervous-paralytic substances Could not cause such a clinical picture. However, chemical weapons specialists to the opinion of the geneticist, sociologist and researcher of journalism for some reason did not listen.

The incident in the Duma Robinson also comments on the Russian media: on February 14, Sputnik published an interview with him, where he, based on an article in the online publication of The Intercept and the statements of the BBC producer Riam Dalati, argued that this attack was an “operation under a false flag” in order to accuse the Assad regime of the Assad war crimes. The Insider has already written about the same Russian media outlets in the Anti -Fake section.