Riam Dalati, a BBC Syria producer, has said that the footage of people being treated after an alleged chemical weapons attack in the Syrian city of Douma was staged.
Dalati wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that the issue had been investigated for six months.
Truth is @James__Harkin got the basics right in terms of #Douma's "propaganda" value.
The ATTACK DID HAPPEN, Sarin wasn't used, but we'll have to wait for @OPCW to prove Chlorine or otherwise.
However, everything else around the attack was manufactured for maximum effect. https://t.co/abRvSIMV1L— Riam Dalati (@Dalatrm) February 13, 2019
https://twitter.com/Dalatrm/status/1095677403198906369
#Russia and at least one #NATO country knew about what happened in the hospital. Documents were sent.
However, no 1 knew what really happened at the flats apart from activists manipulating the scene there.
This is why #Russia focused solely on discrediting the hospital scene— Riam Dalati (@Dalatrm) February 13, 2019
The reports about the attack and the publication of the footage by the White Helmets were followed by missile strikes carried out by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States on alleged chemical weapons production facilities in Damascus.
Notably, back in April, the RT broadcaster reported that Dalati had already expressed his skepticism about the Douma hospital video in a Twitter post. However, the journalist subsequently deleted his tweet, citing a breach of editorial policy.The same month, Hassan Diab, 11, who was featured in the White Helmets video, in an interview with a Russian media outlet alongside his father, gave a detailed description of how the footage of people treated in the hospital had been filmed. Diab said, among other things, that children were given food for participating in the video.