France has issued an international arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on charges of crimes against humanity in the 2013 chemical attack. On Wednesday, the plaintiff in the case and judicial sources confirmed this information.
The opposition blamed Assad’s government for killing more than 1,400 people near Damascus in August 2013. The judicial source said the attack implicated Assad in war crimes.
The charity Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), the lawyers’ organization Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) and the Syrian Archive, an organization working on human rights violations in Syria, filed the case against Assad. The Paris court dealing with crimes against humanity has been investigating the chemical attack since 2021.
Mazen Darbish, president of SCM, said this is a huge step forward. An independent court has admitted that the chemical attack could not have been carried out without the knowledge of the Syrian president. He has responsibility and must be held accountable.
Some footage of that 2013 attack showed dozens of bodies, including many children, lying on the ground. Some pictures show unconscious children, foaming at the mouths of people. A UN report later said that there was clear evidence of the use of sarin gas in the attack.
