PARIS (Reuters) – French justice has issued an arrest warrant against Syrian President Bashar al Assad for complicity in crimes against humanity and complicity in war crimes for the chemical weapons attacks in the summer of 2013 in the Ghouta region near Damascus, we learned on Wednesday from a judicial source.
Arrest warrants were also issued for Maher al Assad, Bashar’s brother, and two generals, Ghassam Abbas and Bassam al Hassan.
In a report, French intelligence services estimated that one of the sarin gas attacks by Syrian government forces left 1,400 dead in August 2013 in the Eastern Ghouta region, near Damascus.
The Syrian government denies the use of chemical weapons against its civilian population.
“This is the first time that we have obtained a decision from an investigating judge for crimes linked to the use of chemical weapons in Syria,” notes lawyer Mazen Darwish, founder of the Syrian Center for Media and freedom of speech. “This is the first time that there is an arrest warrant against the Syrian president.”
“This decision reverses a previous decision of the ICJ (International Court of Justice, Editor’s note) which had granted immunity to heads of state. This means that from now on, the principle of presidential immunity is no longer admissible.”
The Syrian presidency and the information ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
(Report by Layli Foroudi, written by Jean-Stéphane Brosse, edited by Kate Entringer)
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