Trial begins in France against three senior Syrian officials suspected of war crimes

The three men, who are not in custody, are accused of the detention and murder of two French-Syrians arrested in 2013.

May 21. (EUROPA PRESS) –

A French court on Tuesday opened the first proceedings in the country against three senior officials of the Syrian regime suspected of war crimes for the detention and murder of two Franco-Syrian citizens arrested in 2013 in the capital, Damascus, within the framework of the war unleashed two years earlier after the violent repression of pro-democratic protests in the wake of the ‘Arab Spring’.

The defendants, who include the former head of the National Security services, Ali Mamluk; the former director of the Air Force Intelligence services, Yamil Hasán; and the former director of the investigation branch of the aforementioned Intelligence services, Abdelsalam Mahmud, will be tried in absentia for complicity in war crimes.

The case stems from a complaint filed by the brother of Mazen Dabbagh, murdered along with his son Patrick after being detained in Damascus. Obeida Dabbagh has detailed that his nephew was detained by members of the Syrian Air Force on November 3, 2013.

“They asked to see his son for interrogation. They searched the house, took the computers, cell phones and money,” he said in statements to Radio France, before adding that they returned a day later to arrest the young man’s father, whom They accused him of “badly educating” his son. Both were taken to the old airport in Damascus, a well-known detention center, where they were “interrogated and tortured.”

Syrian authorities confirmed the deaths of both men in 2018, when they issued their death certificates. The trial that begins this Tuesday represents the trial against the highest level charges in Syria since the start of the civil war in the country.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) has described the trial as “historic” and Clémence Bectarte, a lawyer for the organization, stated that the authorities’ decision to “present the crimes committed against Mazen and Patrick Dabbagh as crimes against humanity is essential”.

Thus, he maintained that “it involves demonstrating that the acts committed against them were part of a generalized policy applied by the Syrian State, at the highest level, to repress the entire Syrian population.” “Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have disappeared and died, often in atrocious circumstances, at the hands of the Al Assad regime,” he concluded.

In this sense, the Secretary General of FIDH, Mazen Darwish, has stressed that “it is essential to remember that the crimes that will be addressed during this trial are not crimes of the past, since they are all still ongoing because the Syrian authorities continue to enjoy “total impunity.”

To date, German courts found two former Syrian soldiers guilty of crimes against humanity in 2021 and 2022, one of whom was sentenced to life imprisonment. Both had claimed refugee status in the country after leaving Syrian territory and were judged under the principle of universal justice.

In addition, Rifaat al Assad, uncle of the Syrian president, will be tried in Switzerland for war crimes and crimes against humanity after being charged in connection with the Hama massacre in 1982, when he held the position of vice president and officer of the Syrian Army, front of the Defense Brigades and operations in this same city.

Rifaat al Assad fled Syria in 1984 after a failed coup attempt against his brother, although he received permission from Al Assad to return to the country in 2021, ending more than 30 years of exile. Damascus’ decision sought to prevent him from serving a four-year prison sentence for embezzlement of Syrian funds.