Syria Rejects Washington's Crematorium Allegation
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Syria has categorically rejected Washington's accusation that it has constructed a prison-based crematorium to burn the bodies of thousands of alleged executed detainees.
"As it is habitual of successive US administrations to fabricate lies and allegations to justify their aggressive and interventionist policies in other sovereign countries, what came out from the current US administration is just a new Hollywood screenplay disconnected from reality," said the Syrian Foreign Ministry in a statement carried by the official SANA news agency on Tuesday.
The ministry's response came a day after the US Department of State, citing the US intelligence community and some "credible" humanitarian agencies, accused the Syrian government of cremating the bodies of inmates killed in "extrajudicial" executions in the Saydnaya military prison, located some 30 kilometers north of the capital Damascus, in order to "cover up the extent of mass murders taking place" in the detention facility.
It also distributed a satellite photo, dated April 2017, which allegedly shows the Saydnaya complex, naming some parts of it, including a "probable crematorium."
Syria has in the past strongly denied any abuse at Saydnaya. Earlier this year, Damascus dismissed as baseless a report by Amnesty International about mass hanging at the prison, Press TV reported.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry, while strongly condemning the accusation, further said that such allegations were "totally unfounded."
"They are nothing but the product of the imagination of this (US) administration and its agents," it added.
The ministry also said that the new accusation was in line with previous baseless allegations that Washington leveled against the Syrian government, including Damascus' alleged use of "explosive barrels" and "chemical weapons" against the opposition in the Arab country.
The new allegation by the United States against the Syrian government came on the same day that, according to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, US-led airstrikes in Syria’s eastern province of Deir ez-Zour near the border with Iraq killed at least 23 displaced civilians.
On Saturday, another aerial aggression carried out by the US-led military coalition in Raqqah Province claimed the lives of 12 women.
