By Al-Fassel and AFP | 2023-11-16

PARIS -- France on Wednesday (November 15) issued an international arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is accused of complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes over chemical attacks.

The moves comes as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was on Thursday expected to hand down a ruling on a case brought against Syria over torturing tens of thousands of its own people.

In addition to the arrest warrant for the Syrian president, an international warrant was issued for al-Assad's brother Maher, who heads the Syrian army's 4th Division, and two Syrian generals.

The 4th Division is deeply embroiled in the illicit drug trade, especially the trade in Captagon, which provides an essential revenue stream for the Syrian regime.

Warrants were issued for Gen. Ghassan Abbas, director of Branch 450 of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), and Gen. Bassam al-Hassan, presidential advisor for strategic affairs and SSRC liaison officer.

The SSRC provides research and development functions for the Syrian military. Per French intelligence, it is responsible for producing toxic agents for use in war.

Branch 450 is allegedly responsible for filling munitions with chemicals and maintaining security of the chemical agent stockpiles.

In one of the more than decade-long conflict's many horrors, sarin gas attacks saw more than 1,400 people suffocate to death near Damascus in August 2013.

The Paris court's unit concerned with crimes against humanity has been investigating the chemical attacks since 2021.

The probe followed a complaint filed by the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), lawyers' association Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) and the Syrian Archive, which documents human rights violations in Syria.

The organizations that filed the legal complaint hailed Wednesday's move, saying it was the first time a sitting head of state had become the subject of an arrest warrant in another country for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Universal jurisdiction

France can prosecute alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

Universal jurisdiction allows states to prosecute the most serious crimes, regardless of where they were committed.

The first trial of senior Syrian regime officials in France is planned for May 2024.

Germany used the principle of universal jurisdiction to convict a former Syrian colonel, Anwar Raslan, of crimes against humanity and jail him for life in prison in the first global trial over state-sponsored torture in Syrian prisons.

Raslan, who moved to Germany after deserting from the army, was found guilty of overseeing the murder of 27 people and the torture of 4,000 others at a detention center in Damascus in 2011 and 2012.

Days after he was sentenced in January 2022, a Syrian doctor, Alaa Mousa, went on trial in Frankfurt accused of torture, murder and crimes against humanity in military hospitals, including setting fire to a teenage boy's genitals.

Sweden was the first country to sentence a former Syrian soldier for war crimes in 2017.

The man, who sought asylum in Sweden, was charged over photographs on the internet showing him standing smiling over a pile of bodies, with his boot on one corpse.

While the court could not prove he was responsible for the deaths, it said the picture represented a grave violation of the dignity of the dead and sentenced him to eight months in prison.

'Historic moment'

"It's a huge development," SCM president Mazen Darwish said of the warrant for al-Assad's arrest.

"An independent jurisdiction is recognizing that the chemical attack couldn't have happened without the knowledge of the Syrian president, that he has responsibility and should be held accountable," he said.

The case against al-Assad and the others was backed by first-hand witness accounts and deep analysis of the Syrian military chain of command, Darwish said.

"This is a historic moment — with this case, France has an opportunity to establish the principle that there is no immunity for the most serious international crimes, even at the highest level," said Steve Kostas of OSJI.

According to a source close to the investigation, the arrest warrants were the culmination of "painstaking work" by investigators from France's specialised OCLCH unit tracking international crimes.

The goal was to "go as far up the chain of command as possible," the source said.

"If you stop at the helicopter pilot who dropped the bomb, he will be able to say 'I only carried out orders'. The further back you go, the greater the responsibility."

Activists in 2013 posted amateur videos on YouTube said to show the effects of the attack, including footage of dozens of corpses, many of them children, stretched out on the ground.

Other images showed unconscious children, people foaming at the mouth and doctors apparently giving them oxygen to help them breathe.

The scenes provoked revulsion and condemnation around the globe.

A United Nations report later said there was clear evidence of sarin gas use.

Series of chemical attacks

Syria agreed in 2013 to join the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) global watchdog and give up all chemical weapons.

The OPCW has since blamed the Syrian regime for a series of chemical attacks during the war.

The Syrian regime has denied the allegations, which also have sparked legal complaints in Germany and other European countries.

On Thursday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will hand down a ruling on a case brought against Syria over torturing tens of thousands of its own people.

The case is being brought by Canada and the Netherlands, and aims to get the ICJ to order the Syrian regime to stop what the plaintiffs called the "widespread and pervasive" system of torture still in place.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who propped up al-Assad by intervening in the conflict militarily in 2015, himself became the target of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes in Ukraine in March.

The Iranian regime also has been a staunch backer of al-Assad.