France issues international arrest warrant for Syria’s Assad, citing war crimes

French prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar Assad and other senior Syrian leaders Wednesday on war crimes charges related to the country’s bloody civil war.

Authorities charged the president, his brother, Maher Assad, and two senior generals, Ghassan Abbas and Bassam al-Hassan, with war crimes and crimes against humanity, The Associated Press reported.

The Syrian civil war has raged since 2011, killing more than half a million people and displacing more than 12 million, half of whom left the country, according to the United Nations, sparking a migrant wave in the Middle East and Europe.

The alleged war crimes include the use of chemical weapons in a 2013 attack on civilians in Ghouta and Douma, opposition-controlled areas near the capital of Damascus. More than a thousand people are estimated to have been killed.

United Nations inspectors found “clear and convincing evidence” of the use of sarin gas on civilians in the attack at the time of the 2013 attack, which the Syrian government denied. Sarin gas is banned by international law.

Attorney Jeanne Sulzer, who represents the plaintiffs and nongovernmental organizations behind the complaint, hailed the decision.

“It marks a crucial milestone in the battle against impunity,” she told the AP. “It signifies a positive evolution in case law recognizing the grave nature of the crimes committed.”

The Paris prosecutor’s office did not confirm the arrest warrants, which are kept secret by law.

“Legally speaking, this is a procedural act as the investigation into the 2013 attacks in Eastern Ghouta and Douma continues,” Sulzer said. “The four individuals named in the arrest warrants “can be arrested and brought to France for questioning by the investigative judges.”

The criminal investigation was sparked by a complaint from survivors of the attack in March 2021 filed by the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression.  

The Ghouta attack brought widespread backlash to the Assad regime in Syria but did not result in an escalation of the conflict. President Obama called the use of chemical weapons a “red line” but chose not to intervene in the conflict during the ongoing Middle Eastern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After the 2013 attacks, the U.S. negotiated an agreement for Russia to help destroy the country’s chemical weapons stockpile. Despite that agreement, however, there have since been reports of chemical weapon attacks in Syria, including a second attack on Douma in 2018.

Authorities in Germany and Sweden have also pursued war crime charges related to the use of chemical weapons, mostly on lower-level Syrian military leaders.

German authorities found a Syrian intelligence officer guilty of war crimes last year as part of its investigation, in addition to the prosecution of a Syrian doctor the year before. 

The Netherlands and Canada argued for war crimes charges against Syrian leaders at The Hague in June, alleging a systemic and widespread torture operation.