The United Nations has appointed Swiss chemicals weapons expert Stefan Mogl to a three-member leadership panel charged with investigating the use of chemical weapons in Syria. 

The 52-year old head of the chemistry division of the Spiez Laboratory of the Federal Office for Civil Protection, will be a part of the Leadership Panel of the Joint Investigative Mechanism on Chemical Weapon Use in Syria that was created by UN Security Council in 2015.  The job of the panel is to investigate the use of chemical weapons reported by UN fact-finding missions to the country. It currently has its hands full following the reported use of chemical weapons in Khan Shaykhun, in northwestern Syria, on April 4. More than 80 civilians lost their lives in the attack – where the toxic chemical Sarin was used - and more than 200 injured. 

Mogl was trained as a chemical weapons inspector in 1997 by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). He went to become the head of the OPCW lab in The Hague. He returned to Switzerland in 2005 and worked as a chemical weapons expert for the defence ministry before taking charge of Spiez lab in 2007. In his new role at The Hague, Mogl will be responsible for technical coordination of investigations as well as the investigation report. He will be reporting to the head of the panel Edmond Mulet of Guatemala, who was also recently appointed. The work of the panel is supported by over 20 staff based in New York and The Hague, as well as a liaison officer in Damascus. 

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