The National Anti-terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) announced on Monday July 28 to require a new international arrest warrant against the former Syrian president Bashar Al Assad for fatal chemical attacks in 2013 in Syria, after the cancellation of a first arrest warrant on Friday by the Court of Cassation.
The former dictator being no longer protected by the personal immunity from which the Heads of State benefits since his overthrow in December 2024, the PNAT requested on Friday “The issuance of an arrest warrant and its international dissemination of heads of complicity of crimes against humanity and complicity of war crimes against Bashar al Assad”he said in a press release.
The highest jurisdiction of the French judicial order annulled on Friday the arrest warrant issued in November 2023 by two investigating judges against Bashar al Assad on the ground that there is no exception to the personal immunity of the heads of state in practice due to the sovereignty of the States.
This arrest warrant, issued while Bashar Al Assad was still at the head of Syria, was challenged by the PNAT, supported by the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Paris Court of Appeal, in the name of the absolute immunity enjoyed by the heads of state in practice before the courts of foreign countries.
But, Friday, the Court of Cassation also recognized, for the first time, an exception to the functional immunity enjoyed by foreign states agents, as well as the former heads of state, if they are pursued for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“Functional” and not “personal” immunity
“Bashar al Assad having lost the effective control of Syria and ceased de facto to occupy the function of head of state of the Syrian Arab Republic as of December 8, 2024, date of the overthrow of the power in place and from its flight outside the Syrian territory, it no longer benefits from personal immunity attached to its old functions, but only from the functional immunity attached to acts performed on the official title”developed the anti -terrorist prosecution.
Since 2021, two Parisian investigating judges have been investigating the chain of command of chemical attacks attributed to the Syrian power in 2013, having left more than a thousand dead. If they order this new arrest warrant, it would be the second targeting Bashar al Assad in a judicial information in France, recalls the PNAT.
An arrest warrant for the complicity of war crime was issued in January 2025 against the former Syrian president by two Parisian investigation judges for the bombing of a civil housing area attributed to the regime in Deraa (southwest of Syria) in 2017.