Syrian President Bashar al-Assad brushed aside new evidence of mass hangings at a military prison north of Damascus as the result of a "fake news era."
Speaking to Yahoo News in an interview published Friday, Assad charged that human rights watchdog Amnesty International had fabricated the report in an attempt to undermine the Syrian regime.
"You can forge anything these days," Assad said. "We are living in a fake news era."
Amnesty International published a study on Tuesday finding that between 5,000 to 13,000 Syrians were executed extrajudicially at the Sednaya military facility over a four-year span. Many of those killed in what the group called a "human slaughterhouse" were political dissidents suspected of having links to the revolution.
The report was composed of interviews from dozens of former detainees, prison officials, and judges.
Assad rejected the credibility of the report's sources, claiming that Amnesty International could have interviewed anyone, regardless of their former position.
"That report, like many other reports published by Amnesty International, put into question the credibility of Amnesty International, and we never look at it as unbiased," Assad said. "It’s always biased and politicized, and it’s a shame for such an organization to publish a report without a shred of evidence."
Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) called the report's findings "appalling."
"Bashar Assad does not belong in a palace in Damascus. He belongs in a jail cell in The Hague," the Senate Armed Services chairman told Politico.