The organization ” Same Justice ” welcomed the new arrest warrant issued by the French judiciary against the former Syrian regime leader, Bashar al-Assad.
Following the fall of the former Syrian regime on December 8, 2024, the organization submitted a request to the French court to retry the deposed president Bashar al-Assad for the crimes he was convicted of in Eastern Ghouta in 2013. The organization also called for reactivating the previous arrest warrant against Assad, as his immunity and presidential protocol had expired.
On January 20, 2025, a French court issued a new arrest warrant for Assad, issued by investigating judges in the Anti-Crimes Against Humanity Division in Paris.
This French arrest warrant is the second issued against the deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, on suspicion of involvement in war crimes and deliberate attacks on civilians.
The arrest warrant comes as part of broader investigations into attacks targeting civilians in Syria, particularly in the city of Daraa (southern Syria) in 2017. These attacks resulted in civilian casualties, including two individuals with dual French-Syrian citizenship, according Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Investigations proved that the attack led to the death of Salah Abu Nabut, 59, a French-Syrian citizen and former French language professor. He was killed on June 7, 2017, when his home was bombed by helicopters of the former Syrian regime’s army.
The French judiciary considers that Bashar al-Assad ordered this attack and provided the necessary means in his capacity as the “Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Armed Forces.” On this basis, judicial investigations began in 2018.
The son of the victim, Abu Nabut, considered the arrest warrant a result of a long struggle for the justice they believed in from the start. He expressed hope for a trial and the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators wherever they may be.
In November 2023, the French judiciary issued its first arrest warrant against Bashar al-Assad for chemical weapon attacks using sarin gas attributed to his forces. These attacks occurred in August 2013 in the Damascus countryside and left about 1,500 dead.
This decision was considered unprecedented as it stripped Bashar al-Assad of immunity, enabling him to be prosecuted for war crimes and international arrest warrants to be issued against him. The decision at the time also implicated Maher al-Assad and two other high-ranking officers.
The Chemical Violations Documentation Center of Syria (CVDCS) contributed to documenting crimes committed by the former Syrian regime against civilians. Testimonies provided by the center’s director in the French court helped issue the first international arrest warrant against the deposed president Bashar al-Assad.
Nidal Sehikhani, the director of The Chemical Violations Documentation Center of Syria, welcomed the French court’s decision, emphasizing the need to intensify the efforts of all organizations working to document these crimes and pursue justice in international courts.
Sehikhani stressed the importance of ending impunity, particularly in Syria, to allow justice to take its course, restore stability, and enable Syrians to rebuild their country.
