OPCW admits to shunning key dissenter in Douma cover-up

In its defeat at a global tribunal, the OPCW has acknowledged that it shunned an inspector who challenged the Douma cover-up. Dr. Brendan Whelan details the closing chapter of his bid for justice.

(Photo by Yuriko Nakao/Getty Images)

by Dr. Brendan Whelan

The wheels of justice turn slowly but grind exceedingly fine, they say. A recent ruling from the Geneva-based Tribunal of the International Labour Organisation (ILOAT) ordered my former employer the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to reverse its decision to sanction me for alleged breaches of confidentiality and to pay damages. After six years of legal wrangling, the time-worn adage has rung true.

But it isn’t an absolute win or a victory in the true sense. My success at the ILOAT was a correction to a single wrongdoing in the context of a much larger continuing deception being perpetrated by the world’s chemical watchdog and Nobel Peace Laureate.

Neither was it my success. As much as anything, it was a triumph for those who, during the last eight years, have supported the inspectors who challenged the OPCW over its investigation into the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria, in April 2018. I was part of that probe, and a witness to how it had been manipulated, ostensibly to serve a pre-ordained conclusion.

I am referring, of course, to people like Ambassador José Bustani, the first director general of the OPCW who has been steadfast in supporting the inspectors in our fight for transparency. And individuals like Dr Piers Robinson, former UN Assistant Secretary-General Hans von Sponeck, and Professor Richard Falk the former UN special rapporteur for Palestine, who, together with Mr. Bustani, as directors of the BerlinGroup21, have been instrumental in advancing the quest for OPCW accountability.

Or journalists like Peter Hitchens, Tucker Carlson, Caitlin Johnstone, and, above all, Aaron Maté of The Grayzone who made the Douma story his and has been doggedly pursuing it for years, and without whom we inspectors would be voiceless. I include members of the Brussels Panel who were the first to take up the mantle of defending the inspectors. And the signatories of the Statement of Concern, like the four former OPCW team leaders, and musician and activist Roger Waters. Even some politicians who protested. Tulsi Gabbard and former Members of the European Parliament, Mick Wallace and Claire Daly, who risked their own re-election prospects by speaking out.

Without these people, who, for their stance, were targeted systematically with smears and ad hominem attacks on their integrity, the OPCW cover-up would have remained the dark secret of those who perpetrated it and those knowledgeable of it but too scared or unwilling to speak out.

Having said that, it should be stressed that the OPCW not only was, but still is an extraordinary body, staffed by consummate professionals who fervently believe in its mission. During the 2013-14 removal of Assad’s chemical weapons from Syria, in the midst of a raging civil war, it was the OPCW at its best, and the Nobel Peace Prize was a fitting tribute to its extraordinary legacy. It is an organisation I am proud to have served for nearly 17 years.

When I call out the OPCW in the context of the Douma scandal, I am referring to a very specific and tiny element within the Organisation that I believe has been coopted to serve the interests of powerful external actors. The sell-out is the machinations of just a few; individuals in key positions, who, for whatever motives, have embroiled this world-class body in a damning controversy through their willingness to even corrupt science itself.

Now finally, as a direct result of a legal case at an international Tribunal, their deceit, in a gratifying nod to poetic justice, has been confirmed, literally through the Organisation’s own admission.

The ILOAT ruling didn’t just vindicate me personally and those who stood behind the inspectors. While the focus of the ILOAT case was my unlawful sanctioning, the drawn-out legal process threw up some unexpected and damning admissions about the Douma probe.

Where years of public demands and outcry barely elicited a response, faced with a formal legal challenge the OPCW outed itself, perhaps inadvertently, by unequivocally confirming before the Tribunal the core allegations of the dissenting inspectors: that critical evidence in the Douma investigation was withheld; that the Organisation unfairly targeted dissenting inspectors with spurious claims of breaching confidentiality; and that management sidelined inspectors and refused to engage with them over their concerns.

The first two confirmations are now public. Now for the third.

Sounding the Alarm

On 1 March 2019, six months after I’d departed the organisation, the final report—concluding there were reasonable grounds to believe there had been a chlorine gas attack in Douma—was published by the OPCW. But—as has been widely reported—it lacked some critical findings.

I wrote to the OPCW Director-General (DG), Ambassador Fernando Arias, to express ‘some major concerns’ about the report. Specifically, I highlighted the omission of the expert opinion of German toxicologists who had ruled out chlorine gas as the cause of death of more than 40 victims, as well as the excision of the fact that the levels of chlorinated chemicals (trichlorophenols) in environmental samples from the alleged crime scene were no different to what would be expected in the natural environment. Had this evidence been included, it would have turned around the conclusions of the Douma report.

Arias had not been the Director-General during much of the Douma investigation and I suspected he might have been kept in the dark about the attempts to censure and manipulate the initial report. ‘I fear you may not be aware of the details of what has been going on in the FFM and I am duty-bound to enlighten you on the facts’ I wrote Arias in March 2019. I protested that the final report had ‘shockingly omitted’ the German toxicologists’ findings. My letter, however, was not to challenge whether a chemical attack in Douma had necessarily happened or not. It was to call out the impropriety and scientific bias in the investigation into that allegation.

There was no reaction or even acknowledgement from the OPCW chief.

In April, I contacted a senior OPCW director to enlist her help in trying to get a private meeting with Arias. I even offered to fly to The Netherlands. But it was a no go. According to the OPCW Chief of Cabinet (CoC), an audience with the DG would be problematic. Because of protocols, I was told.

Instead, I could write again and mail the letter to the OPCW. And depending on the content, the CoC might consider allowing me a ‘possible’ meeting with the Director-General.

In other words, just to gain access to the DG, I would first have to be vetted by someone who had been the French representative to the OPCW at the time France joined the US in launching missiles on Syria in reprisal for the alleged Douma chemical attack. Facilitating an audience with the DG to express concern about a report that the belligerents saw as legitimizing those attacks, arguably presented an important conflict of interest.

Again, there was no reply from the Director-General.

The following month an engineering study of two industrial chlorine gas cylinders, which contradicted the official findings of the Douma report, was leaked from inside the OPCW. In response, the Director-General initiated a major inquiry.

A meeting with Arias was now more relevant than ever. Tired of being given what seemed like the proverbial run-around, I wrote to the senior director and demanded to speak with the DG “even if protocols have to be side-stepped or even trampled on.” Still no response, but I did get a letter from the Director-General on 7 June.

His vague and blithe response addressed none of the concerns I had raised. It did, however, make what appeared to be a veiled warning against any public revelations. ‘I take this opportunity to remind you of the obligations you undertook when you signed your secrecy agreement with the OPCW. I trust you will fulfill them,’ Arias replied.

Peer support

Despite Arias’ brushoff, given how senior OPCW aides had appeared to be shielding him from engaging directly with me, I wasn’t convinced he wasn’t being insulated from inconvenient facts by his close aides. I made, therefore, a last-ditch effort to get my concerns to him about the suppressed toxicology by other means.

I wrote an email to two senior OPCW colleagues who had been to Germany with me in June 2018 to meet the toxicologists. As scientists, they’d have the same concerns about the suppression of critical evidence. ‘I believe it is our professional and moral obligation to ensure the DG appreciates the gravity of the matter,’ I wrote.

‘[Do] not engage with this person’

The two officials forwarded the email to the CoC and got a reply that was disturbingly telling. I have only since learned of it because the OPCW submitted this correspondence to the Tribunal as part of its defense. ‘DG’s instructions are to not engage with this person,’ the CoC cautioned the two members of staff.

Moreover, my audacious ‘attempt of communication’ with the DG would, he said, be dealt with ‘at the appropriate level.’

And I was dealt with ‘appropriately’. That same day, I was notified that I was a suspect in the leaking of the engineering assessment to the internet, despite having parted with the organisation eight months earlier. Six months later, I was sanctioned by the Director-General for having supposedly contributed to the unauthorised leak and was barred for life from returning to the OPCW.

Framing my attempt to communicate with him as some kind of sinister ploy, in a briefing to OPCW Member States to report the findings of the leak investigation, the Director-General told international delegates that, ‘‘As late as August 2019, almost a year after he left the Organisation, Inspector B (me) contacted members of the Organisation to attempt to convince them to join his campaign to challenge the final Douma report.’’

Attack is the worst form of defense

When I challenged the sanction at the ILOAT, the portrayal—with falsehoods and disingenuous personal attacks—of me as a self-serving persistent nuisance to the Douma investigation became a core part of the OPCW’s defensive strategy.

‘In mid-July 2018, during the Executive Council Session of the OPCW … States Parties submitted questions to the Team Leader [about the Douma Interim Report]’, the OPCW told the Tribunal. ‘While the Team Leader was preparing responses to these questions, the Appellant came to the FFM [Fact-Finding Mission] offices every day demanding access to the States Parties’ questions and the Team Leader’s responses to those questions. The Team Leader did not give the Appellant access to the questions or his answers, as the Appellant had completed his hand-over of all materials relating to the Douma incident on 12 July 2018.’

The claim is a gross exaggeration: in reality, I made a single request to see the document. Moreover, as a team member and lead author of the interim report that States Parties were asking about, it was my right and obligation to know and participate in responding to those questions.

The OPCW’s attempt to justify my exclusion by implying I was no longer a member of the investigation team because I had ‘completed my hand-over … on 12 July 2018,’ (conveniently just days before the questions were submitted) relied on a false premise. I was still part of the investigation team at the time. The Director-General’s own response confirms that. ‘You remained part of the team until you completed the handover of the confidential material by 3 August 2018,’ the OPCW chief wrote me in his June 2019 letter.

All of this, therefore, serves to prove beyond doubt that the OPCW not only refused to engage with inspectors who challenged the integrity of the investigation after the publication of the final Douma Report, but was silencing dissent by sidelining them while they were still officially part of the investigation team.

In this light, the DG’s affirmation in his briefing to Member States rings pretty hollow. ‘The Secretariat always takes into account all information submitted and views exchanged,’ he told delegates. ‘The Douma investigation was no exception.’ Unless, of course, it’s a critical toxicological finding from German military experts or the views of dissenting inspectors.

Rising from the ashes

The ILOAT case has brought closure to the OPCW affair for me personally and an end to a long and often difficult process. But others will go on. BerlinGroup 21, will, no doubt, continue to seek accountability from the OPCW inside the corridors of power of the UN and national governments until José Bustani’s vision is fulfilled. “My hope is that the [O]rganisation can be resurrected to become the independent and non-discriminatory body it used to be,” he said on behalf of the Brussels Panel.

We all share his hope.

Dr. Brendan Whelan, an organic chemist, served two stints at the Organisation for the Prohibition for Chemical Weapons (OPCW) over more than 16 years. In 2018, he went to Syria as part of the Advance Team to investigate the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma. He was responsible for the scientific planning and coordination of the mission, and was the chief author of the team’s investigation report.