A court source in France said on Wednesday, November 15, that four high-ranking Syrian government officials, including President Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher al-Assad, and two more officers, have all been handed arrest warrants for their roles in the usage of prohibited chemical weapons against civilians.
The criminal investigation into the August 2013 chemical strikes in Douma and the region of Eastern Ghouta, which killed over a thousand people, resulted in the issuing of arrest warrants. These reference to the allegations of involvement in crimes against humanity and complicity in war crimes.
Allegation of War Crimes
It is the first time that an international arrest warrant has been issued for the leader of Syria, whose military reacted to demonstrations that started in 2011 with a ruthless crackdown that experts from the United Nations have concluded amounts to war crimes.
In a report by Reuters, Mazen Darwish, a lawyer and founder of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), which launched the lawsuit in France, said these are the first foreign arrest warrants that have been filed in connection with the chemical weapons assault in Ghouta.
Syria claims it does not use chemical weapons, but a previous investigation conducted by the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) revealed that the country's government used the nerve agent Sarin in an assault in April 2017 and that it has constantly used chlorine as a weapon.
"The president is responsible for many crimes in Syria - but with this type of weapon in particular - Sarin gas - it's impossible to jump over the gap (of his involvement)," Darwish said. He said that consent from the president as commander of the armed forces would be essential for this type of decision.
Due to the fact that relying leaders of state normally have immunity from prosecution, arrest warrants for them are very unlikely. However, when a head of state is accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide, international law allows exceptions to such immunity.
In fact, both the current president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the previous president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, are the subjects of arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Involvement of Three Other Key Officials
Ghassam Abbas, the head of Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC), the organization that founded Syria's chemical weapons program, and Bassam al-Hassan, Syria's chief of security and liaison officer, both have had warrants issued for their arrests.
Maher, the president's brother, was thought to have been involved as he was in charge of the Fourth Armored Division.
Since 2011, the Paris Tribunal's section that investigates crimes against humanity has been issuing arrest warrants for Syrian government leaders in connection with crimes that were committed in that country.
In October, French authorities issued arrest warrants for two ex-defense ministers related to a bombing in Daraa in 2017 that killed a French-Syrian man living there.
