PARIS: The primary trial in France of officers of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad is to start on Tuesday, with three high safety officers to be tried in absentia for complicity in crimes in opposition to humanity and warfare crimes.
The Paris Felony Court docket will strive the three officers for his or her function within the deaths of two French Syrian males, Mazzen Dabbagh and his son Patrick, arrested in Damascus in 2013.
“For the primary time, French courts will handle the crimes of the Syrian authorities, and can strive essentially the most senior members of the authorities to ever be prosecuted because the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in March 2011,” mentioned the Worldwide Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).
The warfare between al-Assad’s regime and armed opposition teams, together with Islamic State, erupted after the federal government repressed peaceable pro-democracy protests in 2011.
The battle has killed greater than half 1,000,000 individuals, displaced tens of millions, and ravaged Syria’s economic system and infrastructure.
Trials into the abuses of the Syrian regime have taken place elsewhere in Europe, notably in Germany.
However in these circumstances, the individuals prosecuted held decrease ranks and have been current on the hearings.
Ali Mamlouk, former head of the Nationwide Safety Bureau, Jamil Hassan, former director of the Air Drive intelligence service, and Abdel Salam Mahmoud, former head of investigations for the service in Damascus, are topic to worldwide arrest warrants and will probably be tried in absentia.
Scheduled to final 4 days, the hearings will probably be filmed.
Torture
On the time of the arrest, Patrick Dabbagh was a 20-year-old scholar in his second yr of arts and humanities on the College of Damascus. His father Mazzen labored as a senior schooling adviser on the French highschool in Damascus.
The 2 have been arrested in November 2013 by officers who claimed to belong to the Syrian Air Drive intelligence service.
“Witness testimony confirms that Mazzen and Patrick Abdelkader have been each taken to a detention heart at Mezzeh Navy Airport, which is run by Syrian Air Drive Intelligence and infamous for using brutal torture,” the Worldwide Federation for Human Rights mentioned, stressing that the pair weren’t concerned in protests in opposition to the Assad regime.
They have been declared lifeless in 2018. The household was formally notified that Patrick died on 21 January 2014. His father Mazzen died almost 4 years later, on 25 November 2017.
Within the committal order, the investigating judges mentioned that it was “sufficiently established” that the 2 males “like 1000’s of detainees of the Air Drive intelligence suffered the torture of such depth that they died”.
Through the probe, French investigators and the Fee for Worldwide Justice and Accountability (CIJA), a non-governmental organisation, collected accounts of torture and mistreatment on the Mezzeh jail, together with using electrical shocks and sexual violence, from dozens of witnesses together with former detainees.
Lawyer Clemence Bectarte, who represents the Dabbagh household and the Worldwide Federation for Human Rights, mentioned the trial was a brand new reminder that “on no account” ought to relations with the Assad regime be normalised.
“We are likely to neglect that the regime’s crimes are nonetheless being dedicated in the present day”, she mentioned.
The Paris Felony Court docket will strive the three officers for his or her function within the deaths of two French Syrian males, Mazzen Dabbagh and his son Patrick, arrested in Damascus in 2013.
“For the primary time, French courts will handle the crimes of the Syrian authorities, and can strive essentially the most senior members of the authorities to ever be prosecuted because the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in March 2011,” mentioned the Worldwide Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).
The warfare between al-Assad’s regime and armed opposition teams, together with Islamic State, erupted after the federal government repressed peaceable pro-democracy protests in 2011.
The battle has killed greater than half 1,000,000 individuals, displaced tens of millions, and ravaged Syria’s economic system and infrastructure.
Trials into the abuses of the Syrian regime have taken place elsewhere in Europe, notably in Germany.
However in these circumstances, the individuals prosecuted held decrease ranks and have been current on the hearings.
Ali Mamlouk, former head of the Nationwide Safety Bureau, Jamil Hassan, former director of the Air Drive intelligence service, and Abdel Salam Mahmoud, former head of investigations for the service in Damascus, are topic to worldwide arrest warrants and will probably be tried in absentia.
Scheduled to final 4 days, the hearings will probably be filmed.
Torture
On the time of the arrest, Patrick Dabbagh was a 20-year-old scholar in his second yr of arts and humanities on the College of Damascus. His father Mazzen labored as a senior schooling adviser on the French highschool in Damascus.
The 2 have been arrested in November 2013 by officers who claimed to belong to the Syrian Air Drive intelligence service.
“Witness testimony confirms that Mazzen and Patrick Abdelkader have been each taken to a detention heart at Mezzeh Navy Airport, which is run by Syrian Air Drive Intelligence and infamous for using brutal torture,” the Worldwide Federation for Human Rights mentioned, stressing that the pair weren’t concerned in protests in opposition to the Assad regime.
They have been declared lifeless in 2018. The household was formally notified that Patrick died on 21 January 2014. His father Mazzen died almost 4 years later, on 25 November 2017.
Within the committal order, the investigating judges mentioned that it was “sufficiently established” that the 2 males “like 1000’s of detainees of the Air Drive intelligence suffered the torture of such depth that they died”.
Through the probe, French investigators and the Fee for Worldwide Justice and Accountability (CIJA), a non-governmental organisation, collected accounts of torture and mistreatment on the Mezzeh jail, together with using electrical shocks and sexual violence, from dozens of witnesses together with former detainees.
Lawyer Clemence Bectarte, who represents the Dabbagh household and the Worldwide Federation for Human Rights, mentioned the trial was a brand new reminder that “on no account” ought to relations with the Assad regime be normalised.
“We are likely to neglect that the regime’s crimes are nonetheless being dedicated in the present day”, she mentioned.
