The head of Arab League monitors in Syria dismissed as untrue Thursday the comments of an Algerian observer who quit in disgust over continued violence in the country and slammed the mission as a “farce”. Anwar Malek left the monitoring team this week and then criticized the Arab mission in media interviews, saying the Syrian government was still carrying out killings, detention and torture of those involved in a 10-month-old uprising. “General Mohammed Al-Dabi, the head of the Arab monitors' mission to Damascus, has confirmed that what the monitor Anwar Malek said to a satellite channel does not relate to the truth in any way,” the Arab League said in a statement. “Since he was assigned to the Homs team, Malek did not leave the hotel for six days and did not go out with the rest of the team into the field giving the excuse that he was sick,” the statement said, adding that Malek had asked to travel to Paris for treatment but then left suddenly on his personal account. The Arab League monitoring mission, now about 165 strong, began work on Dec. 26. Its task is to verify whether Syria is complying with an agreement to halt a military crackdown on protests against President Bashar Al-Assad.
