PART II: VIDEO IS ONLY ONE PIECE OF EVIDENTIARY PUZZLE As we saw in Part I of the Ghouta Field Note, while the videos from Ghouta, Syria, and Bhopal, India, did not prove a crime had been committed, the videos alerted the global community hat something was very wrong. In both of these cases, videos served as what is referred to as lead evidence. The world learned that a crime may have been committed when it witnessed, through multiple videos,1 a large number of people suffering from symptoms of apparent poisoning — constricted breathing and involuntary muscle spasms, frothing at the mouth, fluid seeping from their noses and eyes, and death. For Ghouta, the videos compelled the UN to send in a team of investigators to determine what happened. Once on site, the UN investigators collected and tested blood and urine samples from victims. The samples tested positive for Sarin gas. These samples provided definitive evidence of exposure to Sarin. Lawyers refer to this as prima facie evidence, as it establishes a key fact — exposure to the gas. It still does not, however, establish whether the poisoning was purposeful or not. 49 VIDEO AS EVIDENCE: ALL ABOUT EVIDENCE V 1.0 LAW FIELD NOTE GHOUTA TO BHOPAL: VIDEO’S ROLE IN THE INVESTIGATIVE PROCESS