French judge to lead UN Syria war crimes probe

United Nations, United States - 4 July 2017:UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday appointed a French judge to lead an international panel tasked with gathering evidence of war crimes in Syria's six-year war.

Catherine Marchi-Uhel, who has served as an international judge in Kosovo, Cambodia and at the war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia, was named to head the Geneva-based panel.

She currently works as the ombudsperson for a Security Council committee that deals with the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda.

The UN General Assembly in December set up the international panel to help collect evidence to be used in future cases of war crimes prosecution.

More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria where a UN Commission of Inquiry has documented cases of torture, summary killings and other atrocities by all sides in the conflict.