On May 24, 2024, a French court sentenced three senior Syrian regime officials to life imprisonment in absentia. The Paris Criminal Court convicted these officials of complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes following the deaths of two French nationals detained in Syria in 2013.
The court upheld the international arrest warrants against Major General Ali Mamlouk, the former head of the National Security Bureau; Jamil Hassan, the former head of Air Force Intelligence; and Abdel Salam Mahmoud, the former head of the Air Force Intelligence Investigation Branch.
Investigations conducted by the Crimes Against Humanity Unit of the Paris Judicial Court concluded that it was sufficiently proven that the victims were tortured and died as a result.
Clemence Bectart, who represented several civil parties in the case, stated that this was the first trial to convict senior officials of the Syrian regime for complicity in crimes against humanity. She added that this verdict resonates with hundreds of thousands of Syrians still awaiting justice.
The prosecutor in this case aimed to demonstrate that the “Bashar al-Assad” regime followed a “repressive policy implemented by the highest levels” of the hierarchy, applied locally in every province.
According to the public prosecutor’s statement to the French agency, the accused, along with Bashar al-Assad, are “pillars of this regime” and should therefore be convicted of complicity in committing crimes against humanity and war crimes. The victims’ fate remained unknown until their deaths were announced in August 2018.
The victims, Mazen and his son Patrick Dabbagh, were arrested in November 2013 by individuals believed to be from the Syrian regime’s Air Force Intelligence service.
The defendants were tried in absentia in a trial that lasted from May 21 to May 24, 2024, following an order by two French judges on April 4, 2023, to prosecute the three defendants after issuing international arrest warrants against them.
After the verdict, the three convicts have the right to appeal their conviction and be retried before the primary court if they are individually or collectively apprehended.
Same Justice organization calls for the release of all detainees held by the Syrian regime and insists on the necessity of prosecuting “war criminals” and all perpetrators of crimes against humanity, as well as ensuring justice for the victims’ families.
