Updated April 27, 2018 07:27:47

Russia has presented more than a dozen alleged witnesses from Ghouta in Syria at The Hague to support its claim that the chemical attack this month was "staged".

Britain dismissed the move as a theatrical "stunt", and said allied powers including France and the United States had boycotted the closed-door briefing.

"The OPCW [Organisation for the Prohibition for Chemical Weapons] is not a theatre," Britain's envoy to the agency, Peter Wilson, said in a statement.

"Russia's decision to misuse it is yet another Russian attempt to undermine the OPCW's work, and in particular the work of its fact-finding mission investigating chemical weapons use in Syria."

The OPCW is investigating the deaths of dozens of people in Douma, an enclave in Ghouta, on April 7 which the United States and its allies said was caused by chemical weapons, possibly a nerve agent, used by forces of the Russian-backed Government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The suspected attacks led to air strikes by the United States, France and Britain against sites in Syria.

Both Syria and Russia have denied the accusation and said rebel forces staged the attacks.

Russia and Syria brought 15 Syrians to a news conference in The Hague on Thursday (local time), and they said they had not seen any evidence of chemical weapons being used in Ghouta.

One child, identified by Syrian Government-provided translators as 11-year-old Hasan Diab from Ghouta, said he had been to a hospital after the attack.

Photo: An unidentified boy from Douma, Syria, speaks at a news conference in The Hague. (Reuters: Michael Kooren)

"They started pouring water on me in the hospital. I don't know why," he said.

The boy resembled the child seen in a video widely shown on Western television stations after the alleged attack.

Chemical weapons inspectors are in Syria to try to find out what happened in Douma, but don't expect any definitive finding, writes Anne Barker.

Russia's ambassador to the Netherlands said the video was "staged" by the White Helmets, a Syrian aid group that receives funding from the US and other Western governments.

OPCW investigators on the spot visited a second site in Ghouta on Wednesday to take samples.

France's Ambassador to the OPCW, Philippe Lalliot, called the display of Syrians in The Hague "obscene".

"This … does not come as a surprise from the Syrian Government, which has massacred and gassed its own people for the last seven years," he said.

He said it was more surprising coming from Russia.

"One cannot but wonder if the weaker [Syria] is not taking the stronger [Russia] on a path beyond its interests, if not its values."

Reuters

Topics: world-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, russian-federation, syrian-arab-republic, netherlands

First posted April 27, 2018 06:36:32