In November, 2011, Wiley travelled to Istanbul with two Tsamota colleagues to train Syrians to collect evidence that would be useful in war-crimes prosecutions. A security consultant whom he knew had selected some young Syrian activists and lawyers, who were invited to recruit trusted friends. Wiley was impressed by their bravery, but he thought that their methods were ineffective. âTheir tendency, in those days, was to run around with cameras, video cameras, smartphones, and photograph regime attacks in urban areas, and then put this stuff on YouTube,â he told me. âOne of the first things we did was explain to them that, as criminal evidence, itâs basically uselessâ without corroboration. âYouâre running tremendous risksâand, indeed, a lot of young people were getting killed and wounded generating video or visual imagesâreally to no end.â Filming an air strike on a hospital, for example, offers no evidence that the attack was planned by the kinds of high-level officials who draw the interest of the international justice system. âOne needs to establish their individual criminal culpability,â Wiley said.
