As South Africa calls for the arrest of Israel’s leadership, France has issued a warrant for the arrest of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.
According to news reports, two investigative judges this week issued warrants for the arrest of Assad, as well as his brother Maher al-Assad and two other Syrian officials.
They are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity relating to the use of chemical weapons against civilians.
This has been described as ‘unprecedented’ by legal observers since it involves a warrant issued by one state against a sitting president of another.
A ‘Red Notice’ from Interpol will likely follow. This is a request to Interpol members to cooperate with arrest and extradition.
The case relates specifically to a request by the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression, the Open Society Justice Initiative and the Syrian Archive in 2021 to investigate the ‘use of banned chemical weapons against civilians in the town of Douma and the district of Eastern Ghouta in August 2013, in attacks which killed more than 1 000 people.’
[Image: By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69213705]