Investigating criminal acts involving chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) materials presents a number of unique challenges. A crime scene involving a CBRN attack could manifest itself in many forms: An actual incident with injuries and deaths; a clandestine production laboratory; or a vehicle or container used for moving or smuggling material. These are only some of the possibilities.

National or international ability to successfully investigate and prosecute criminal acts using CBRN substances, whether they used in terrorist acts, conventional criminal activity, or war crimes leaves much to be desired.  In many places around the world, the lack of consistent, competent, and legally defensible processes, procedures, personnel, and equipment means that war criminals and terrorists may escape justice due to lack of credible evidence. As recent incidents of reported CBRN attacks by the Assad regime and ISIS in Syria show us, there is a need for better capabilities and procedures in the collection and preservation of evidence in such cases.

Holding Up in Court

Across the world, legal proceedings in national and international courts rely on evidence.  In the case of CBRN incidents, physical evidence is extremely important and it can be assumed that skilled and aggressive defense counsel in trials and hearings will challenge any evidence presented. The chain of events that leads from turning up at the scene of the incident all the way to a conviction in a courtroom is fraught with pitfalls. Competent defense counsel will question the evidence and everything to do with the evidence.  Where was the sample collected? What was the procedure to determine where to collect samples?  What container was used to collect it?  Was it sterile?  Can this be proven?  What techniques were used?

A competent forensic technician knows how to answer these questions from a hostile attorney. But the hazmat technicians and military CBRN specialists who might be the ones collecting the evidence, as is the case in many places, may be competent in their jobs, but untrained for the court-room environment.  Challenging the evidence being presented is the nature of adversarial legal systems around the world.

It is indeed tragic that terrorists or war criminals may walk free simply because CBRN evidence was collected improperly or not collected at all.

In addition to legal proceedings, regardless of what happens in the courtroom, evidence will be challenged in public forums.  One only need to look at the recriminations, conspiracy theories, and related drama surrounding the August 2013 Sarin attacks in Ghouta, Syria to see the kind of morass that can develop.  Doubt, specious allegations, contradicting theories, and chaos will drip and leach into any real or perceived gap in the evidence or the process by which the evidence was collected and processed.

The problem is that the chain of events to take evidence from the point of use in an incident or investigation all the way through to the courtroom is deficient in most parts of the world.  In my decades of experience in CBRN matters, I have seen no end of substandard practices in this area, and many places in the world simply have zero capability to collect and process evidence from a CBRN crime scene.  I have seen in recent years in a NATO and EU member state a training exercise in which the remnants of a terrorist chemical device and the incriminating material it contained literally flushed down the sewer, without any attempt to examine it for evidence. No one (other than myself) raised objections to these actions.

Training First Responders

In today’s asymmetric battlefields where state and non-state actors mix, the issue of collecting and preserving evidence at the scene of a CBRN incident or war crime is problematic for many reasons.  The problem is caused by a number of conflicts in priorities and deficiencies in capabilities. The sphere of people with the ability to safely operate in a CBRN environment (or similar hazardous situations) does not intersect very much (or at all) with the sphere of people who are trained to think and operate forensically. In many countries, CBRN/Hazardous material incident responders are drawn largely from or entirely from the military and fire services, and the forensic technicians work with, under, or as part of the police services. The handful of people who have some sort of awareness in both fields are scarce.

They do exist, however. Some come from a background in the enforcement of environmental and pollution regulations and laws. Experts in clandestine drug l