France Begins Trial Of Syrian Officials For War, Crimes Against Humanity

France has commenced the first trial of three high-ranking security officers from Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime. The three security officers were tried on Tuesday in absentia for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Paris Criminal Court would be hearing cases against the officials for their role in the deaths of two French Syrian men, Mazzen Dabbagh and his son Patrick, arrested in Damascus in 2013.

Ali Mamlouk, the former head of the National Security Bureau, Jamil Hassan, the former Air Force intelligence director, and Abdel Salam Mahmoud, the former chief investigator in Damascus, are all under international arrest warrants and would be tried in their absence.

According to the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), this would be the first time French courts would address crimes by the Syrian authorities involving the highest-ranking officials prosecuted since the Syrian revolution started in March 2011.

This trial follows a seven-year investigation by a French judicial war crimes unit. It has been described as “the culmination of a long legal battle” by lawyer Clemence Bectarte, who represents the Dabbagh family and the FIDH.

The Case

Patrick Dabbagh, then a 20-year-old student of arts and humanities at the University of Damascus, and his father, Mazzen, a senior education adviser at the French school in Damascus, were apprehended in November 2013 by people purportedly from the Syrian Air Force intelligence service.

According to FIDH, witnesses confirmed that Mazzen and Patrick were taken to a detention centre at Mezzeh military airport, known for its brutal torture practices and run by Syrian Air Force Intelligence.

FIDH noted that neither Mazzen nor Patrick had participated in anti-Assad protests.

In 2018, the family received official notification that Patrick had died on January 21, 2014, and Mazzen on November 25, 2017.

In 2016, Mazzen Dabbagh’s wife and daughter were forced out of their Damascus home, which was seized.

The prosecution suggested these actions could be considered war crimes, extortion, and concealment of extortion.

Investigating judges found sufficient evidence that the two men, like many other detainees of Air Force Intelligence, were subjected to severe torture that led to their deaths.

Patrick Baudouin, also representing the FIDH, stated that extensive incriminating evidence had been collected, pointing to “a system of torture, mistreatment, inhuman treatment, and disappearances” in Syria.

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