Britain sold chemicals and components to Syria that ended up being used in the manufacture of the deadly nerve agent sarin, according to BBC’s Newsnight.
Syria's declarations to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons name Britain as the sole supplier of dimethyl phosphate (DMP), trimethyl phosphate (TMP) and hexamine - three chemicals that Syria used in the production of sarin, the building blocks of sarin and Newsnight understands British companies sold hundreds of metric tonnes of them to Damascus, verified by a UK government audit of chemical sales by British companies. The Foreign Office document makes clear Britain was not the only country guilty of selling materials to Damascus that ended up in its chemical weapons programme.
Professor Alastair Hay, a chemical weapons expert from the University of Leeds, said: "I think at the time somebody should have been a bit more alert and saying... 'Why are we doing this? These chemicals have other uses but they can certainly be used in a chemical weapons programme and we shouldn't be selling them.'"
As with Saddam Hussein the UK knew Assad possessed WMDs because we had the invoices for them.
Syria's declarations to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons name Britain as the sole supplier of dimethyl phosphate (DMP), trimethyl phosphate (TMP) and hexamine - three chemicals that Syria used in the production of sarin, the building blocks of sarin and Newsnight understands British companies sold hundreds of metric tonnes of them to Damascus, verified by a UK government audit of chemical sales by British companies. The Foreign Office document makes clear Britain was not the only country guilty of selling materials to Damascus that ended up in its chemical weapons programme.
Professor Alastair Hay, a chemical weapons expert from the University of Leeds, said: "I think at the time somebody should have been a bit more alert and saying... 'Why are we doing this? These chemicals have other uses but they can certainly be used in a chemical weapons programme and we shouldn't be selling them.'"
As with Saddam Hussein the UK knew Assad possessed WMDs because we had the invoices for them.
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