Syria subjecting civilians to mass punishment - U.N. panel

GENEVA (Reuters) - Syria's government has subjected civilians to collective punishment and its forces stand accused of carrying out executions and mass arrests in the devastated district of Baba Amr in Homs, United Nations investigators said on Monday.

Paulo Pinheiro, addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council on behalf of an independent panel, said those who committed such crimes must face justice. He did not name any suspects.

But the three-member panel said last month it had drawn up a confidential list of suspects alleged to be behind documented crimes against humanity, including murder and torture, for future prosecution by a credible body.

A month of unrelenting shelling by Syrian forces had brought death and destruction to Baba Amr, Pinheiro, the panel's chairman, said.

"Those who fled the area reported summary executions and mass arbitrary arrest campaigns," he said in a speech to the 47-member forum in Geneva.

Pinheiro told Reuters: "These are the allegations we have received regarding government forces."

The human rights and humanitarian situation was becoming bleaker day by day in neighbourhoods in Homs, Idlib, Hama, rural Damascus and Deraa, he told the talks.

"What is clear is that civilians continue to bear the brunt of violent strife ... Force used by the government against armed groups often led to collective punishment of civilians."

The United Nations says that well over 7,500 people have been killed in a year of protest against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. They include more than 500 children and the "toll is mounting", Pinheiro said.

The mission of Kofi Annan, joint special envoy of the U.N. and Arab League for Syria, must be supported so as to help promote a peaceful solution to the crisis, he added.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Assad to act within the next few days on U.N.-Arab League proposals to bring peace to Syria.

Syria's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui, rejected the U.N. panel's work as "politicised". "It has lost its legal and ethical hallmark," he said in a speech.

"The crisis is not due to peaceful protests or demands for reform. The crisis is due to the influence of external parties bent on afflicting my country, waging a media war against Syria and imposing economic sanctions against the Syrian people."

Syrian opposition fighters are backed by "al Qaeda which has penetrated the country from 13 different countries", Hamoui said.

"Civil war is being ignited ... This is a prelude to partition of Syria, this is the aim of Israel and those supporting the endeavour, the prolonged colonization of Arab territories," he added.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Janet Lawrence)