Mahmoud Souleiman Hajj Hamad, Syrian government official, defects (VIDEO)

Mahmoud Souleiman Hajj Hamad, the head auditor at the Syrian defense ministry, told reporters Wednesday in Cairo that he had defected from the Syrian government, Al Jazeera reported.

Hajj Hamad said that in the course of his duties as auditor for the Defense and Interior Ministries he came across information that showed the Syrian government had reallocated money to security groups responsible for the violent crackdown. 

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“We were analyzing and seeing for ourselves that the regime's story about armed gangs going out and killing protesters was all lies," he said. "I confirm there are no armed gangs, they are all unarmed protesters," Al Jazeera reported.

Hajj Hamad said he had found that $40 million had been spent so far on financing the loyalist thugs as well as military equipment.

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He also claimed that the Bashar al-Assad regime receives support from Iran and Iraq, without elaborating, and claimed that most government officials in Damascus want to defect: "Syrian government officials live in a kind of prison…No one can go anywhere without being accompanied by a member of the security services," he added, according to the interview.

View the Al Jazeera interview here:

Meanwhile, the head of a top Syrian opposition group called Thursday for an end to the controversial Arab League observer mission in Syria and for a no-fly-zone to be imposed over the country, the BBC reported. He also called for the West to establish a safe zone in the country.

Dr. Burhan Ghalioun, head of the Syrian National Council, an Istanbul-based opposition in exile, said in a BBC interview:

"We only agreed to the Arab League monitoring mission because it was going to expose the regime. We were never relying on it to stop the killing," Dr Ghalioun told the BBC.

"If they could convey just a tiny shred of what's happening, that's more than enough to condemn the regime, to prove they have been telling lies since the beginning."

Ghailoun echoed calls by the Qatari emir Hamid bin Khalif al Thani for the United Nations officials to assume part or all of the responsibilities of the Arab League's mission. Ghailoun told the BBC he was "worried the Arab League mission was providing political cover for the regime to suppress street protests."