Investigative judges in the French war crimes unit on Wednesday ordered the arrest of four senior officers of the Assad regime in Syria, on charges of complicity in war crimes.
The arrest warrants included the former Ministers of Defense, General Ali Abdullah Ayoub and General Fahd Jassim Al-Freij, in addition to the Commander of the Air Force, Major General Ahmed Baloul, and the Commander of the 64th Helicopter Brigade, Brigadier General Ali Al-Saftli.
Zaman_Al-Wasl news site contributed with the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression by providing evidence to support the case file over the past years.
The investigating judges issued international arrest warrants against the four officers at the end of the judicial investigation that began in 2017 following a complaint filed by Omar Abu Nabout, after his father was killed in an explosive barrel attack carried out by Assad’s forces in June 2017, as part of the military operation led by the Syrian regime army In the southern city of Daraa with support from Russia.
Omar Abu Nabout, the victim’s son who currently resides in Paris, said: “After six years of determination, I am proud today because this lawsuit against war criminals and the killers of my father has become a reality.” He added, "I remember well when I submitted a request to the French public prosecutor to open an investigation into my father's death, and my goal was to prevent war criminals from escaping punishment."
For his part, Mazen Darwish, founder and director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, said: “Schools, hospitals, and the staff working in them have been deliberately and systematically targeted by the Syrian government over the past decade.” He added, "This is the first time that the judiciary has looked into the role of the Syrian Air Force in targeting vital installations and using explosive barrels. These arrest warrants are considered a step towards accountability for these crimes and achieving justice for their victims."
The Center provided the investigating judges with the names of witnesses, and a large collection of photos and video clips, which documented the bombing of June 7, 2017 in Daraa, in addition to basic information about the chain of command of the Syrian Air Force and the Syrian regime’s army, and the mechanism of issuance and sequence of implementation of the combat order in the Syrian Air Force.
The Human Rights Center also actively contributed to the investigation by submitting to the judiciary a special study through which it was possible to determine the airport from which the plane that carried out the attack was launched, and its type (a Russian-made ME type helicopter) was identified, in addition to determining the type of weapon used, which was explosive barrels.
The Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression also obtained samples from the targeted building.
The Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression thanked the Zaman al-Wasl website, which contributed to supporting the judicial investigation against the four accused Assad officers by providing information and photos documenting the charges against them, in addition to the role of defectors from the army and security services, and the Jisr website and newspaper for helping them.
This case comes to be the first to deal with the crime of targeting civilian facilities and using indiscriminate weapons, such as explosive barrels, as a war crime.
On June 7, 2017, a helicopter belonging to the Assad Air Force dropped an explosive barrel on a three-story building in the Al-Sad Road area in the city of Daraa, owned by a Syrian citizen with French citizenship, Salah Abu Nabut, which led to his death.
The targeted building included a children's school, Al Sadd School (Ajyal), which was managed by a Jordanian non-governmental organization.
Salah Abu Nabout was arrested in April 2013 until the summer of 2015 when he was released from Adra prison, and his family left for Jordan and then to France during his detention.
Ajyal School was not the only school that was targeted in Daraa at that time, as seven other schools were bombed by Syrian government aircraft, with support from Russia, which led to the death of a number of students, as shown in photos and videos.
In this context, lawyer Tariq Hokan, Director of the Center’s Strategic Litigation Project, said: “This case is the first case that the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression has worked on completely, independently, and without international partners.
The center’s team prepared and built the entire case file and submitted it to the judiciary. It is another message that the victims themselves and local institutions are the basic guarantee for achieving justice and preventing impunity in order to reach sustainable peace in Syria.”
In 2018, the French judiciary had previously issued arrest warrants against three high-ranking Syrian security officials, Major General Ali Mamlouk, head of the National Security Office, Major General Jamil Hassan, director of the Air Force Intelligence Department, and Brigadier General Abdul Salam Mahmoud, head of the Investigation Branch of Air Intelligence, for their involvement in committing crimes. The torture, forced disappearance, and killing of Mazen and Patrick Al-Dabagh, which are considered crimes against humanity.
The Abu Nabout case comes as the first of its kind to be considered before the judiciary and focuses on the killing and deliberate targeting of civilians, which constitute war crimes. The use of barrel bombs and deliberate attacks against the civilian population have killed thousands in Syria since 2011 across the country.
The prevalence and persistence of such crimes shows how important accountability is to put an end to them.
The lawyer for the civil parties in the case, Clemence Bechtart, said: “This case shows the extent of the courage and determination of Syrian survivors and Syrian civil society. The international arrest warrants issued are the first of their kind, accusing senior Syrian regime officials of war crimes.”
She added, "This indicates that the battle for accountability and responsibility continues, especially after the historic judicial ruling issued in the city of Koblenz in Germany last year and the order issued on March 29, 2023 by French judges to send Syrian officials to trial on charges of complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes." .
The Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression welcomed the decision issued by the investigating judges in Paris in the case of targeting the Ajyal School in Daraa, which claimed the life of Salah Abu Nabout, and praised the essential role of the victim’s son, as he represents an example of determination to achieve justice for the victims by all available legal means.
The Center considered that filing this lawsuit is an addition to the previous litigation steps, in support of the victims’ efforts to work to achieve justice, and it comes within the context of working on available alternatives, to preserve the rights of the Syrian people, and to pave the way for a comprehensive national transitional justice path in the future.
As the conflict, now in its 13th year, reached a stalemate, the Syrian government reclaimed large swathes of lost territory with the help of its key allies in Russia and Iran in recent years.
The U.N. estimates that some 300,000 civilians died during the first decade of the uprising, while half of the pre-war population of 23 million were displaced.
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