The French Public Prosecutor announced today, Tuesday, July 2, that it has decided to appeal the arrest warrant against Bashar al-Assad regarding his use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Paris Court of Appeal referred the case to the Court of Cassation to decide “a legal issue” related to the arrest warrant against the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, who is accused of complicity in crimes against humanity in 2013 in Syria.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office stated, “We do not question the substance of the case, particularly the existence of serious or compelling evidence against Bashar al-Assad that makes his involvement in chemical attacks likely. However, it is necessary for the highest judicial court to review the position taken by the Investigating Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal regarding the issue of personal immunity of a sitting head of state for such crimes,” according to details reported by the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.
The French judiciary had validated, on June 26, the arrest warrant against Bashar al-Assad on charges of complicity in crimes against humanity in Syria.
Investigating judges from the War Crimes Unit at the Paris Judicial Court have been investigating the chain of command that led to chemical attacks on August 4 and 5, 2013, in Adra and Douma near Damascus, and the attack on August 21 of the same year in Eastern Ghouta, which resulted in the killing of more than a thousand people.
The investigations led to the issuance of four arrest warrants in November 2023, on charges of complicity in crimes against humanity and complicity in war crimes.
The arrest warrants at the time targeted, alongside Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher, and two other generals, Ghassan Abbas, director of Branch 450 of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, and Bassam Hassan, al-Assad’s strategic affairs advisor and liaison officer between the presidential palace and the scientific research center.
When French investigating judges issued the arrest warrant against al-Assad, they reasoned that the commission of such crimes as using chemical weapons nullifies all laws and customs related to immunity.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers Clémence Witt and Jeanne Sulzer stated that “acknowledging, as affirmed by the National Counter-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office, that Bashar al-Assad benefits from immunity would effectively secure him protection from any prosecution in France and create a state of impunity,” according to Asharq Al-Awsat.
The lawyers considered that “the extraordinary severity of the facts, represented by al-Assad’s repeated chemical attacks against his people from one side, and the robustness of the investigation file proving the involvement of the Syrian regime in these violations from another side, call for a decision that finally allows French and Syrian victims to achieve justice.”
The arrest warrant against al-Assad was based on a criminal complaint filed by the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression and survivors of the chemical massacre in rural Damascus. This was the first time a sitting head of state faced an arrest warrant in another country, charged with committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The French judiciary pursues the accountability of war criminals in Syria. Last May, a French court sentenced three Syrian regime officials in absentia to life imprisonment on charges of complicity in war crimes, after a trial described as “historic,” especially as it was the first time a serving Syrian official was prosecuted.