OPCW whistleblower scandal grows. Staffers found strong evidence that Syrian gov't did not carry out a chemical weapons attack in Douma, but they -- along w/ their findings -- were silenced. New leaked documents tell the story in fuller detail: thegrayzone.com/2020/02/11/new…
The 1st leaked document we obtained is the written UN testimony of Ian Henderson, a veteran OPCW official who visited Douma & wrote an engineering study that was kept from the public -- because it undermined the official story. Doc is here: thegrayzone.com/wp-content/upl…
Henderson offers the most extensive account of the internal dispute over the OPCW’s Douma investigation to date. It is an extraordinary tale of experts struggling to have their evidence heard in the face of bullying superiors acting to reach a pre-determined, false conclusion.
He confirms US officials held an unusual briefing at OPCW. A 2nd whistleblower has said this meeting was seen by OPCW officials as "unacceptable pressure." For the US, there was on obvious motive: pressuring OPCW to retroactively justify its April 2018 military strikes on Syria. 
During the drafting of an interim report on the Douma probe (ultimately released on July 6 2018 -- one day after US "briefing"), Henderson & others complained about "significant changes" that contradicted the available evidence.
After that interim report was released, the task of writing a final report lay ahead. But things changed: OPCW officials announced that the final report would be drafted by a “core team” that was separate from the one which deployed to Douma, with the exception of one paramedic.
A key task was analyzing the 2 cylinders found at the Douma scene. But Henderson ran into resistance from above. This was concerning: there was "nobody within the team with the required knowledge and expertise to conduct the engineering study."
Henderson managed to press ahead w/ his engineering study and submitted its findings for peer review among colleagues. But he then ran into a second problem: his superiors refused to accept it, and even ordered that a copy be removed from an internal archive.
With his engineering study excluded, a "final" report was released. Henderson was "shocked" by the exclusion of his study. He saw instead "what I considered to be superficial and flawed analysis in the section on the cylinders."
For its analysis of the cylinders, the final report claims it relied on “three independent analyses” without specifying. Why did OPCW rely on 3 unspecified “independent analyses” from outside experts who never set foot in Douma, rather than a veteran OPCW staffer who was there?
Henderson tried to resolve this question by having his study compared, in a transparent scientific inquiry, to the studies that were used for the final report. He was stonewalled and warned of consequences for persisting -- "don’t make yourself a martyr."
Henderson is still hopeful that the scientific inquiry that was blocked can still happen. "Should an independent scientific panel be allowed, he concludes, “I have no doubt that this would successfully clarify what happened in Douma on 7 April 2018."
The second leaked document we received is an email from a former senior OPCW official who warns of a climate of intimidation and censorship around the Douma investigation. This former official cites fear for their & family's safety for not speaking out.
We are supposed to champion whistleblowers. These whistleblowers have exposed a deception -- under US pressure -- that retroactively justified US-led military strikes on Syria. Silence over this story is complicity in the cover-up, and further endangers those who exposed it.
