A French court issued a new arrest warrant against the ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday, January 21, on charges of complicity in committing war crimes in Syria.

Two French judges issued the arrest warrant for Bashar al-Assad, related to a bombing by the regime that took place in Daraa in 2017, which resulted in the death of a civilian named Salah Abu Nabout (59 years old), who held both French and Syrian citizenship.

The warrant was issued after investigations proved that Abu Nabout, who worked as a French language teacher, was killed in a helicopter bombing carried out by the regime’s helicopters, targeting his home in Daraa.

The French judiciary believes that Bashar al-Assad ordered this attack and provided the necessary means to carry it out.

Salah’s son, Omar Abu Nabout, stated that “this case is the culmination of a long struggle for justice, which my family and I have believed in from the beginning.”

The ruling is set to be reviewed by the Court of Cassation in response to an appeal by the public prosecutor’s office in Paris on March 26.

This warrant is the second of its kind aimed at the arrest of Bashar al-Assad, issued by French judges in the Unit for Combating Crimes Against Humanity at the International Criminal Court in the capital, Paris.

Previously, criminal investigation judges in France issued an arrest warrant against al-Assad, his brother Maher, as well as two of his aides, on charges of using chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta in August 2013, following a criminal investigation conducted by the unit specialized in crimes against humanity and war crimes under the Paris judicial court.

However, the National Anti-Terrorism Public Prosecutor’s Office in France then requested that the Court of Appeal determine the validity of the warrant, given that al-Assad was then a sitting head of state enjoying immunity, which prompted objections from human rights and international organizations, who called for non-recognition of his immunity.

The arrest warrants then targeted, in addition to Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher, and two other generals: Ghassan Abbas, director of Branch 450 under the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, and Bassam al-Hassan, al-Assad’s advisor for strategic affairs and liaison officer between the presidential palace and the scientific research center.

In July 2024, the Paris Court of Appeal approved the arrest warrant, describing the ruling as “historic,” as it marked the first time a French court recognized that the personal immunity of a sitting head of state is not absolute.