Russia says child witness shows Douma attack ‘staged’

MOSCOW: Russia said Thursday it would screen at the United Nations an interview with a child who it claims was made to pose as a victim of chemical weapons in Syria.

Moscow said the video supports its allegation that an alleged chemical attack in the Syrian town of Douma was a hoax.Russian state television on Wednesday aired the conversation with the child, whom it identified as an 11-year-old Syrian boy called Hassan Diab.

Russia says the supposed atrocity was staged by the civil defence organisation the White Helmets. “We already have a subtitled version of this report,” Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said on state channel Rossiya 1 on Thursday.

“We are distributing it to member countries (of the UN Security Council) and journalists, and at the next meeting of the Security Council we will find a way to screen it.”Russia says British-made smoke grenades found in Syria: Russia said Thursday that Syrian government forces found German “chlorine containers” and British “smoke grenades” in the country’s Eastern Ghouta, an ex-rebel enclave that was taken over by regime forces in April.

“In the liberated territories of Eastern Ghouta, Syrian government troops found containers with chlorine — the worst kind of chemical weapon — from Germany, as well as smoke grenades made in — attention — Salisbury,” Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

Salisbury is the British town where a former Russian double agent, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter were poisoned on March 4.The incident sparked a bitter diplomatic crisis between Moscow and London. Britain says Russia was behind the attack on the pair, a charge Russia furiously denies.