Scientist accused of developing Syria’s chemical weapons program traced to Edmonton | 24CA News

Early on Aug. 21, 2013, Syrian authorities forces fired rockets loaded with the nerve agent sarin into the rebel-held Ghouta district of Damascus.

As the chemical clouds unfold, residents started to froth on the mouth. Fluid oozed from their eyes and noses as they convulsed and suffocated.

The Ghouta gasoline assault killed as much as 1,400 individuals, lots of them youngsters, and was the newest show of the horrors of chemical warfare.

Ten years later, Global News has traced a scientist accused of serving to Syria develop its chemical weapons program to an Edmonton suburb.

De-classified Canadian authorities paperwork allege that Ahmad Haytham Alyafi made a “significant contribution to the manufacturing of chemical weapons.”

From 1974 to 1994, the chemical engineer labored on the military-run centre that produces chemical weapons for the Syrian regime, federal officers wrote within the paperwork.

Alyafi “set up a plant he knew would manufacture chemical weapons; he therefore contributed significantly to their production,” based on the paperwork, which name his position “indispensable.”

But when rescue employees had been gathering our bodies in Ghouta a decade in the past, Alyafi was dwelling in a 2,500-square-foot residence on a cul-de-sac in Edmonton’s west finish, the data present.

“Mom and dad have been living with us at our house in Edmonton since the spring of 2013,” Alyafi’s son wrote in a 2019 letter sponsoring his mother and father for everlasting residence in Canada.

“My dad picks up the kids from school daily and they spend time with them on homework after school time,” wrote the son, who works within the Alberta building business.

Immigration data from 2019 listing the Syrian scientist as “currently residing in Canada.” The deal with he used was a four-bedroom residence in Edmonton’s Glastonbury neighbourhood.

Whether he remained in Edmonton was unclear. The house is at the moment staged and up on the market. Neighbours recalled seeing Alyafi, however not for a number of months.

His cellphone has an Alberta 587 space code and continues to be lively, however he didn’t reply or reply to textual content messages or emails.

The federal companies that investigated Alyafi declined to debate his case.

“I have no family left in Syria,” Alyafi wrote in an announcement as a part of his bid to immigrate to Canada.

“My life is my son and my grandchildren. They need their grandparents to give them extra emotional and mental development.”

He denied ever making chemical weapons, however Canadian authorities paperwork inform a distinct story.

The first large-scale chemical weapons had been utilized by German forces in 1915. By the tip of the First World War, chemical weapons from all armies had claimed at the very least a million casualties, 12,000 of them Canadians.

The 1925 Geneva Protocol banned using chemical compounds in armed conflicts, however Syria secretly started a program within the Seventies after shedding a struggle with Israel.

Assigned to the duty was the innocuously named Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC), which was “responsible for the development of nuclear, biological, chemical, and missile-related technology,” a Canadian authorities report on Alyafi alleged.

SSRC scientists had been “a key component of the chain of command — they developed and produced chemical weapons, which were later used against the Syrian population, including civilians,” it mentioned.

During his twenty years on the SSRC, Alyafi held a “senior position,” based on the outcomes of an investigation.

A Canadian Security Intelligence Service report alleged that “Alyafi was involved in the start-up phase of the SSRC’s pilot plant … the purpose of which was the production of chemical weapons.”

A subsequent report by the Canada Border Services Agency’s National Security Screening Division alleged Alyafi spent 3-1/2 years conducting analysis for the “pilot plant.”

Alyafi is “a former director … of the SSRC … responsible for developing and producing chemical and biological weapons; in addition, the information indicated that the applicant was involved in the SSRC’s pilot project to produce chemical weapons,” the CBSA wrote.

He held “high positions of importance,” together with Project Manager and Technical Director, and remained with the centre for 20 years, and later turned Syria’s vice minister of business, the report mentioned.

The CSIS and CBSA experiences had been produced in 2018 after Alyafi utilized for everlasting residence in Canada. Parts had been blacked out “for reasons of national security.”

The data additionally present that in 2018, the workplace of Conservative MP Kelly McCauley contacted immigration officers a number of occasions concerning the case. Alyafi’s Edmonton deal with is in McCauley’s using.

McCauley mentioned he was unaware of the allegations in opposition to Alyafi till contacted by Global News. “These are not shared with us,” he mentioned. “All we can do is check on applications.”

He mentioned his workplace first checked on Alyafi’s file in September 2018. In February 2019, his workplace requested for an replace, and in May 2019, it forwarded paperwork to the immigration division.

But Alyafi’s utility for everlasting residence was rejected attributable to his “contributions to Syria’s chemical weapons program.”

The letters denying him residence mentioned he had a “key role” in putting in a plant he knew was being constructed to fabricate chemical weapons that had been “to be used in the future for ill purposes.”

He was deemed a hazard to the safety of Canada. The CBSA mentioned that, given his expertise, he might “pass this knowledge on to others producing chemical weapons.”

The Russian authorities’s poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter within the United Kingdom in March 2018 concerned using the nerve agent Novichok and “measures should be taken in order to prevent such devastating incidents,” the CBSA wrote.

More lately, the reckless invasion of Ukraine by Syria’s prime ally Russia has stoked fears President Vladimir Putin might resort to chemical assaults.

Alyafi challenged the choice within the Federal Court and misplaced in 2021.

Syria amassed an estimated 1,000 tonnes of the chemical warfare brokers sarin, VX and nitrogen mustard by 2014, based on Jane’s Intelligence Review.

The UN has been attempting to dismantle this system. As a part of the trouble, the SRCC and its workers have been sanctioned by Canada (underneath its French acronym CERS) and different international locations.

The Trudeau authorities has decried Syria’s use of chemical weapons as “morally reprehensible” and mentioned it “wholly supports efforts to ensure that perpetrators of such crimes are held to account.”

Canada can be a member of the Partnership Against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons.

Federal companies declined to answer questions on Alyafi. But he doesn’t seem to have confronted any fees in Canada, and there’s no official affirmation he was deported.

Alyafi didn’t reply to interview requests by cellphone, e-mail, textual content and social media, however Global News has obtained statements he despatched to immigration officers dealing with his case.

According to the statements, after finishing his PhD in chemical engineering at Manchester University in England, Alyafi returned to Syria in 1977 to work on the SSRC.

He was given worker quantity 162 and advised the centre can be producing “a chemical agent that is harmful to humans,” he wrote.

He claimed the poisonous agent was “not to be used ever.” Rather, he wrote, it was meant as a “deterrent” in opposition to what the Syrian regime claimed had been nuclear threats from its enemies.

The chemical brokers had been meant “to provide the leadership of the country a strategic weapon,” he defined.

By growing chemical weapons, Syria hoped to spice up its “negotiating position in any future peace talks that may take place in the Middle East.”

While he mentioned he was dissatisfied to seek out out the SRCC was growing a chemical agent, he was legally obliged to work for the centre for 7-1/2 years as a result of it had funded his PhD overseas.

He needed to spend an extra 2-1/2 years on the SRCC as obligatory navy service, he added.

The solely means out was to go away Syria, which might have put his household in danger, he wrote in his assertion.

“I was trapped.”

He mentioned his position was to “help in the start up of the plant,” however he denied any position in “strategic decision-making” and mentioned he tried repeatedly to stop.

His crew on the SRCC included three majors from the “army chemical war department” who had been despatched to the Soviet Union to check, he wrote.

“I have never dealt with a chemical warfare agent,” he wrote. “Of course, I had no part of any discussion on the delivery systems because it is not in line with my role or expertise.”

He mentioned he first tried to go away in 1987, and tried seven extra occasions till his resignation was accepted in 1994. He then went into business, and served because the Vice Ministry of Industry from 2006 to 2009.

In 2010, he mentioned a Syrian-Canadian business affiliation invited him to tour Canada for 12 days. He was in Regina when a “Canadian Security department” officer requested to fulfill him.

He returned to Canada in 2013 and was once more visited by safety officers at his son’s residence in Edmonton. He mentioned he “discussed my work and role in the SSRC.”

He claimed the officers assured him there was no drawback and “from now on your stay in Canada will be plain sailing.” CSIS declined to touch upon the alleged incident.

“I clearly state that I am never a danger to Canada and was never involved in strategically manufacturing chemical weapons for any reason,” he wrote. 

Syria admitted it had chemical weapons in 2012. While the regime vowed to not use them, experiences of sarin assaults mounted. The Ghouta assault in August 2013 was the primary affirmation of their large-scale use.

The United Nations Security Council ordered the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons in September 2013. But Syrian forces once more used sarin in opposition to civilians within the city of Khan Shaykhun on April 4, 2017. Ninety died, 30 of them youngsters.

As it does in Ukraine, Syria’s ally Russia harnessed its state propaganda shops to unfold disinformation concerning the assault, falsely blaming the UN.

The regime performed an estimated 120 chemical assaults, most by dropping barrels crammed with chlorine from helicopters. Unlike sarin, which is so deadly that it was banned underneath the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993, chlorine additionally has business makes use of and because of this, is more difficult to control.

“Because sarin acts on the nervous system, it disrupts all bodily functions — pupils shrink, mouth and lungs fill with saliva and bodily fluid,” the CBSA wrote in its report on Alyafi.

“Heart begins to slow, blood pressure decreases causing consciousness, bowels and bladder spasm painfully and empty out. Some victims may experience seizures; and sometimes, exposure can be fatal.”

It is especially dangerous to youngsters.

Alyafi mentioned he had given his “greatest gift in life to Canada” — his son, who’s a Canadian citizen.

He mentioned that his manufacturing facility in Damascus was destroyed through the struggle, and he that is aware of different SSRC scientists who stay in Canada and the United States.

“The bottom line for me, Canada is the country I trusted my son with since he was 17 years of age and now proudly a Canadian citizen and it is his home country and my grandchildren’s birth and home country,” he wrote.

He and his spouse need “to join our only son and his family in Canada and to make Canada our home.”

Under the heading meant occupation, Alyafi wrote: “Depending if some of my skills are needed and allowed.”

Stewart.bell@globalnews.ca