MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd May, 2020) The "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States has accused China of intentionally lying about the coronavirus outbreak and destroying virus samples, according to their 15-page dossier obtained by Australia's The Saturday Telegraph.
The document brings charges of "the suppression and destruction of evidence" against Beijing, pointing at "virus samples ordered destroyed at genomics labs, wildlife market stalls bleached, the genome sequence not shared publicly, the Shanghai lab closure for 'rectification', academic articles subjected to prior review by the Ministry of Science and Technology and data on asymptomatic 'silent carriers' kept secret."
According to the document, the Chinese government silenced or "disappeared" doctors who spoke out, suppressing or destroying evidence and refusing to provide live samples to the international community to develop vaccines.
The dossier states that this "assault on international transparency'' to the "endangerment of other countries" has cost tens of thousands of lives.
As part of their investigation into whether the virus could have originated from a Wuhan laboratory, the five intelligence agencies mentioned the lab's research into synthesizing a bat-derived coronavirus that could not be treated as a matter of concern.
The newspaper noted that key researchers of the Wuhan lab, featured in the dossier, had been either trained or employed in the Australian Animal Health Laboratory of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), where they conducted research on deadly pathogens in live bats, including SARS-like viruses. The partnership between CSIRO and the Chinese academy of Sciences has not been suspended even after the pandemic broke out, according to the media outlet.
The US administration, including President Donald Trump himself, has repeatedly suggested that the virus had sprung out of a lab in Wuhan. China has refuted the allegations. The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence said on Thursday that intelligence assessments indicated a natural cause of the virus.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday that he had no evidence of the coronavirus originating from China's lab, but said that one cannot rule anything out.
