Dutch photographer Steven Wassenaar believes the Syrian government was behind the attack which killed French journalist Gilles Jacquier. He says so in an interview with Nrc on Saturday.

Wassenaar, who lives in Paris, was wounded during the attack and had to have some shrapnel removed from near his left eye.
Freedom
The party of 17 journalists and photographers he and Jacquier belonged to came to Syria at the request of a Christian organisation, Wassenaar explains. ‘They invited us to see that everything was normal, that there was freedom of demonstration. Before we set out we had to watch a speech by president Assad who said, if the translation was correct, that foreign journalists were out to destroy Syria.’
By then, he says, the party was split into those who believed things weren’t so bad in Syria and those who didn’t.
Critical
The journalists most critical of the regime were invited to visit the town of Homs the next day. There, Wassenaar noticed that the people going about their business were not ordinary citizens. ‘There was a group of fifteen children demonstrating, the shops were open en people were walking about. But it all seemed incredibly forced. You could just tell from the way they were looking at us.’
Security guards lead the journalists to a school building which had supposedly been bombed. ‘We were all experienced war correspondents and yet we let them take the initiative. When we entered the school their was no evidence of it ever having been bombed but the minute we went in the bombing started. We were herded to another building when another bomb exploded. The third killed Gilles. All the security people disappeared.’
Wassenaar and a colleague managed to get away. They rang the embassy. ‘We’re being attacked’, they said. ‘By the regime.’