The Syrian opposition has published thousands of photographs of detainees who had died in President Bashar al-Assad’s prisons to enable family members to identify victims and aid with war crimes cases that could be filed in international courts, reports the New York Times.

The publishing of the photos of victims is intended to help determen the indemnity of the victims to help with efforts to pursue charges, especially if some of the victims happened to be dual citizens of other countries, opponents of Assad’s regime told reporters.

A London based lawyer, who represents the Syrian official, known by the alias of Ceaser, who smuggled the photographs out of Syria, Toby Cadman, said,

“it is essential that those responsible are brought before a court of law, whether that is The Hague, New York, London or Madrid.”

“In order to be able to be effective in the pursuit of justice for the victims we must have witnesses and plaintiffs to begin the legal process in national courts where we are planning prosecutions against the Assad regime for war crimes,” added another legal representative for the Syrian opposition, Mouaz Moustafa.

Ceaser, handed over 26,948 photographs of killed detainees to the FBI last year, however the work of identifying the victims has been difficult, according to US officials speaking in October.

As a result, the supporters of the Syrian opposition, have given public access to the database of photos, to aid the process.

“Regrettably, the F.B.I. has not yet disclosed its findings. That has prompted our team to make a very difficult decision to set up a process by which family members can go through a collection of images with a view to identifying missing loved ones that they believe were arbitrarily arrested, tortured and possibly murdered by the regime,” said Mr Cadman.