France issues arrest warrants for senior Syrian officials

FRANCE French prosecutors have issued international arrest warrants for three senior Syrian intelligence and government officials, including security chief Ali Mamlouk, for alleged collusion in war crimes, lawyers and a judicial source said yesterday. Mamlouk, one of Syrian President Bashar alAssad’s most senior advisers, was targeted by the order alongside Jamil Hassan, the head of Airforce Intelligence who is already the subject of a German warrant, the sources said.

Another senior Airforce Intelligence official, Abdel Salam Mahmoud, who lawyers say heads a detention fa cility at Mezzeh military airport in Damascus, was named in the order. The warrants stem from a longrunning case involving two FrenchSyrian nationals, father and son Mazen and Patrick Dabbagh, who were arrested by Syrian Airforce Intelligence agents in Syria in November 2013 and subsequently disappeared.

The Dabbagh family obtained documents from Syria in July 2018 indicating that Mazen died in custody in November 2017 and Patrick in January 2014, lawyers for the family said. “This is a first victory and I hope the beginning of a new era of justice and accountability for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Syria,” said Obeida Dabbagh, the brother and uncle of the victims, who worked with legal and human rights groups to bring the case and secure the warrants. In a statement, the rights groups — the International Federation for Human Rights, France’s League for the Rights of Man and the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression — said the warrants were issued on October 8. (Reuters)

Security chief Ali Mamlouk. (Photo: Aaj News)