Two French investigating judges issued an arrest warrant on Monday for complicity in war crimes against deposed Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, held responsible as “commander-in-chief of the armed forces” of a bombing in Deraa in 2017 which killed a civilian who had French nationality, we learned on Tuesday January 21 from a source close to the matter.
This is the second arrest warrant issued by French judges, from the crimes against humanity division of the Paris judicial court, targeting the former dictator, overthrown in early December 2024 by the rebel coalition dominated by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Cham (HTC) and now a refugee in Moscow.
The issuance of this warrant follows a supplementary indictment from the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat), which requested its issuance, according to the same source.
According to elements of the investigation, the Pnat considers that Bashar Al Assad, no longer being president in office, no longer benefits from personal immunity, supposed to protect him from any legal proceedings before foreign jurisdictions by virtue of a practice of international law based on mutual respect for sovereignty.
“Result of a long fight”
This mandate was concluded following investigations which established that Salah Abou Nabout, a 59-year-old Franco-Syrian national, former French teacher, died on June 7, 2017 following the bombing of his home by Syrian army helicopters.
French justice believes that Bashar Al Assad ordered and provided the means for this attack, according to the source in the file.
Six senior dignitaries of the Syrian army are already the subject of arrest warrants for complicity in war crimes, as part of this judicial investigation opened in 2018.
“This case represents the culmination of a long fight for justice, in which I and my family believed from the start”declared in a press release Omar Abou Nabout, son of the victim, hoping that a “ trial will take place and the perpetrators will be arrested and tried, wherever they are”.
A first mandate issued in 2023
In November 2023, a first arrest warrant was issued against Bashar Al Assad for the chemical attacks attributed to his regime on August 5 in Adra and Douma (450 injured) and on August 21, 2013 in eastern Ghouta, where more than a thousand people, according to American intelligence, were killed by sarin gas.
While considering “likely” the participation of Bashar Al Assad in these attacks, the public prosecutor contests in the name of personal immunity the legal merits of this mandate, validated on appeal, issued while Bashar Al Assad was still head of state.
The Court of Cassation must examine the appeal of the general prosecutor’s office of the Paris Court of Appeal on March 26.