A propaganda poster in Syria featuring Bashar al-Assad. (Creative Commons)

Clips of the ABC interview show Assad denying that he ordered a brutal crackdown on Syrian dissidents.

"We don’t kill our people," he said. "No government in the world kills its people, unless it’s led by a crazy person."

Assad also denied that he is in charge of the army.

"Many people criticize me, did they kill all of them, who killed who, most of the people that have been killed are supporters of the government not the vice versa," Assad told Walters.

A United Nations Commission report has estimated that 4,000 protestors have been killed since March. Assad did not acknowledge the report and asked to see evidence that his regime has committed crimes against humanity.

"They don't have even the names, who are the rape people or who are the tortured people who are they, we don't have any names, they didn't," the Syrian president said.

Walters pressed Assad on abuse, citing the murder of Hamza al-Khateeb, a 13-year-old boy who was detained after a protest and tortured by authorities. Video shows that al-Khateeb was shot, burned and castrated. Assad fiercely denied that the boy was tortured by authorities. "No, no, no. It’s not news. I met with his father, the father of that child and he said that he wasn’t tortured as he appeared in the media," he said.

The Globe and Mail’s Affan Chowdhry praised Walters' tough questioning of Assad. "If the Assad family of Syria expected a soft Barbara Walters touch during its first major interview with a U.S. news organization since the beginning of the nine-month uprising, it ended up getting something very different," Chowdhry said in a piece.

But some are accusing ABC of presenting a segment with "no moral value" that merely promotes "shameless voyeurism" and betrays the people of Syria.

"Instead of seeing the broad abuse that is taking place hourly in Syria, ABC viewers were subjected to a litany of insane denials," said Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. "There is a profound journalistic hypocrisy of sitting down with the brutal thug and giving him a platform of denial while real journalism in Syria is rendered impossible by virtue of Assad's exclusion of any reporting of the crimes against humanity for which he is responsible."

According to the Associated Press Walters admitted the trip to Syria made her nervous although it is not her first time meeting with Assad. The Syrian president specifically chose Walters to act as an interviewer, presumably from a list of prospective ABC journalists.

"He was very happy with the interview," Walters said about her conversation with Assad. "He likes the confrontation. He likes the tough questions. When it was over, he smiled and thanked me and he was happy. I don't know if it did him any good."

A transcript of the Walters' exclusive interview is available here. Below is a clip of Walters discussing her interview:

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