* U.N. human rights report details murders, rapes, torture
* List of suspects in U.N. hands for possible prosecution
* Investigator Pinheiro expects international body to act
* Team queried 369 victims, witnesses, used satellite images
(Adds quotes from Reuters interview with Pinheiro)
GENEVA, Feb 23 (Reuters) - A confidential list of top
Syrian officials suspected of ordering crimes against humanity
including murder, abductions and torture has been given to the
United Nations for possible future prosecution, U.N.
investigators said on Thursday.
Syrian forces bent on crushing a popular uprising have shot
dead unarmed women and children, shelled residential areas and
tortured wounded protesters in hospital under orders from the
"highest level" of army and government officials, the
independent panel said in a report.
The three-member panel said that they had drawn up a secret
list of names of commanding officers and officials alleged to be
responsible for gross violations. The list, which also
identifies armed opposition units tied to abuses, might help
"future credible investigations by competent authorities".
"The list we have deposited with the U.N. High Commissioner
for Human Rights is based on evidence we have collected since
being appointed and covers the period from March 2011 to now,"
Brazilian expert Paulo Pinheiro who lead the team told Reuters.
Pinheiro, speaking by telephone from Sao Paolo, declined to
say how many names the secret list contained or whether they
included the names of ministers or President Bashar al-Assad.
"We're not a criminal investigative body or tribunal, it is
not our mandate...One day a competent international body will
deal with it," he told Reuters. "This is for the Syrian people
to decide."
U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay -- whose office now has the
sealed envelope containing the panel's list -- has previously
said that the situation in Syria should be referred to the
prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
"The commission received credible and consistent evidence
identifying high- and mid-ranking members of the armed forces
who ordered their subordinates to shoot at unarmed protesters,
kill soldiers who refused to obey such orders, arrest persons
without cause, mistreat detained persons and attack civilian
neighbourhoods with indiscriminate tanks and machinegun fire,"
investigators said in a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
The commission of inquiry found that rebel forces led by the
Free Syrian Army had also committed abuses including killings
and abductions, "although not comparable in scale".
NO COMMENT FROM SYRIA
Syrian diplomats in Geneva were given the 72-page report on
Wednesday, according to Pinheiro. "I don't have any comment from
them for the time being," he said.
A Jan. 23 letter from Syria's diplomatic mission in Geneva,
printed in the report's annex, rejected as "totally false"
allegations contained in the U.N.'s previous report in November
that its forces were committing crimes against humanity. The
Syrian letter accuses "armed terrorist groups" of such crimes.
Syrian tanks thrust into a rebel stronghold in the shattered
city of Homs on Thursday. Rockets, shells and mortar rounds
rained on the Baba Amro district, where armed insurgents are
holed up with terrified civilians, for the 20th day in a row,
activists said..
"It is an emergency situation and an interruption of
fighting is absolutely necessary," Pinheiro said of Homs.
SATELLITE IMAGES CORROBORATE TESTIMONY
The U.N. team was not allowed into Syria but said it had
interviewed 369 victims and witnesses in the country and abroad.
"Satellite imagery of areas where military and security
forces were deployed, and related reported violations occurred,
corroborated a number of witness accounts," it said.
Photographs, videos and some government documents were also
examined by investigators.
Thousands of people, mainly civilians but also soldiers and
defectors, have been killed during the crackdown, it said.
"Army snipers and Shabbiha gunmen posted at strategic points
terrorised the population, targeting and killing small children,
women and other unarmed civilians. Fragmentation mortar bombs
were also fired into densely populated neighbourhoods."
Some 6,399 civilians and 1,680 army defectors were killed
in more than 11 months of violence in Syria through Feb. 15,
according to figures provided by the Violations Documentation
Centre, a network of activists in the country and abroad quoted
in the U.N. report.
Pinheiro said the group, which said more than 18,000 people
were in detention as of Feb. 15, was a "credible source".
"Security agencies continued to systematically arrest
wounded patients in state hospitals and to interrogate them,
often using torture, about their supposed participation in
opposition demonstrations or armed activities," the report said.
The panel further said it had "documented evidence that
sections of Homs Military Hospital and Al Ladikah State Hospital
had been transformed into torture centres".
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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