Damascus, Jan 23

The Syrian government Wednesday rubbished a report which has blamed it for torture and killings of thousands of detainees in government-run detention centres.

The "baseless" report, prepared by the British Carter-Ruck law office, is "politicised and lacks objectivity and professionalism", Xinhua quoted the Syrian Justice Ministry as saying in a statement after the report was published Monday.

The report by Carter-Ruck is reportedly based on thousands of photos provided by a Syrian defector that showed patterns of systematic torture and killing of detainees in Syrian government's prisons.

The Syrian ministry said "the aforementioned law office is clearly linked to hostile sides to the Syrian Arab Republic since the beginning of the crisis in Syria".

"The report is a mere gathering of photos of unidentified persons proving that a number of them are foreign terrorists from several nationalities who had been killed when attacking the military checkpoints and civil institutions," the statement said.

"Part of them are civilians and military personnel who were tortured and killed by the armed terrorist groups because of their support to the state," it added.

As the report was published two days before the Geneva II conference, it undoubtedly proves that it carries a political objective and tries to undermine the efforts exerted to realise peace in Syria and end terrorism in the country, the Syrian ministry said.

By:IANS