The arrest warrant for Bashar al-Assad canceled in France

French justice considered that no exception could raise the personal immunity of a head of state. In addition, She canceled the arrest warrant issued by Parisian investigation judges against the former Syrian-president Bashar al-Assad for chemical attacks in 2013. However, – Arrest warrant bashar al-assad canceled

(Keystone-ATS) “However”, since Bashar al-Assad was overthrown in December 2024 and is no longer president, “new arrest warrants have been able to or may be issued against him” for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the arrest warrant bashar al-assad canceled president of the highest court of French judicial order, Christophe Soulard, said on Friday during a public audience broadcast on the Internet.

The judicial information open against him can therefore continue, he added.

In November 2023. For example, two specialized Parisian investigation judges had issued an arrest warrant for complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes against Bashar al-Assad for chemical attacks attributed to Syrian power in 2013.

These attacks had been perpetrated from August 4 to 5. 2013 in Adra and Douma (450 injured) and on August 21 in Eastern Ghouta, where more than a thousand people, according to American information, were killed by sarin gas.

In June 2024, the Paris Court of Appeal validated this mandate.

Appeal

The national anti -terrorist prosecution at first instance. then the public prosecutor’s office on appeal, formed appeals, defending absolute immunity before the foreign courts enjoyed by the heads of state, prime ministers and ministers in arrest warrant bashar al-assad canceled the exercise.

On July 4. during a hearing before the Plenary Assembly, his most solemn training, the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation Rémy Heitz proposed the maintenance of the arrest warrant.

He initially challenged the analysis of the court of appeal according to which these crimes “cannot be considered as part of the official functions of a head of state”. in particular by considering that “personal immunity was devoted” by a decision of the International Court of Justice in 2002.

But the Attorney General then proposed to the Court “a third way”. dismissing the personal immunity of Bashar al-Assad because as early as 2012, he was no longer considered by France as the “legitimate head of state”, in view of “mass crimes” of “Syrian power”.

“Moral foundation”

The lawyer for the Council of Civil Parties -NGOs. Victims -, Paul Mathonnet had asked the Court to him “the possibility of dismissing this personal arrest warrant bashar al-assad canceled immunity on a case -by -case basis” if impunity is at stake, for example when the “absolute prohibition” of chemical attacks is crossed.

For Mazen Darwish, from the Syrian Center for the Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), Mr. Heitz’s position is “very skillful” legally but “undermines the moral foundation” advocated by his organization according to which “immunities must not apply” in the event of a war crime. crime against humanity.

“It also gives a single foreign government the power to decide which is. is not a legitimate head of state, which constitutes an extremely dangerous precedent when one grants this power to a single state,” added Darwish.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is not competent for international crimes committed in Syria. the country not having ratified the Treaty of Rome which instituted it. And no resolution of the United Nations Security Council has ordered its referral.

The geopolitical context has changed since the arrest warrant bashar al-assad canceled initial issuance of the arrest warrant: Bashar al-Assad was overthrown in December. took refuge in Russia.