A Syrian court has issued an absentia arrest warrant for former President Bashar al-Assad, citing charges of murder and torture, as reported by the official news agency. This move marks the first of its kind by the transitional government since the previous regime was toppled.
Damascus’s Seventh Investigative Judge, Tawfiq Ali, stated that the warrant relates to events in Daraa from 2011, including accusations of intentional homicide, torture leading to death, and unlawful detention. According to Ali, this judicial decision opens the door for the warrant to be circulated through Interpol and for international follow-up on the case. The action was initiated based on a complaint from the victims’ families in Daraa province.
Daraa was the epicenter of the popular protests in 2011 against the former regime, which eventually escalated into a devastating conflict that resulted in over half a million deaths across the country. This recent legal action is unprecedented within Syria by the transitional authorities.
In November 2023, France’s judiciary also issued an arrest warrant for Assad regarding chemical attacks attributed to his forces in Ghouta and other areas near Damascus in 2013, which resulted in casualties.
In July, the French public prosecutor’s office specializing in terrorism requested a new international arrest warrant against him for the same charges. Subsequently, in August, the judiciary issued seven arrest warrants for senior former officials, including Assad, related to the bombing of a press center in Homs in 2012, which led to the deaths of American journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik.
The former Syrian president, who fled to Russia with his family in December, could be tried in absentia in Syria if the investigative judges order a trial, according to a judicial source in Damascus.
The International Criminal Court does not have jurisdiction over crimes committed in Syria, as Damascus has not ratified the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the court. European courts, particularly in Germany, have previously employed the principle of universal jurisdiction to prosecute former Syrian security officials involved in torture and crimes against humanity in their country.