France Issues Third Arrest Warrant Against Bashar al-Assad for Syrian Chemical Attacks

France has been investigating suspected chemical attacks by the Syrian government since 2021.

French magistrates issued a new arrest warrant this summer against former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad for deadly chemical attacks that occurred in 2013, according to a judicial source on Thursday.

This represents the third separate arrest warrant France has issued against the former dictator, who is currently in exile in Russia. Assad ruled Syria from 2000 until his overthrow last year after more than 14 years of devastating civil conflict.

Since 2021, French investigators have been examining suspected Syrian government chemical attacks on Adra and Douma near Damascus on August 4-5, 2013, and in Eastern Ghouta on August 21.

Approximately 450 people were injured in the first attack, while American intelligence reports indicate over 1,000 people were killed by sarin nerve gas in East Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus.

Magistrates had previously issued an arrest warrant in 2023 for the chemical attacks case while Assad was still president, but France's highest court annulled it in July because it was ordered while his presidential immunity was still in effect.

The new warrant, issued after his removal from power, replaces the previous one. It charges him with complicity in crimes against humanity and complicity in war crimes related to the chemical attack case.

In the same case, magistrates also issued a warrant for Talal Makhlouf, the former commander of the Syrian Republican Guard's 105th Brigade, according to the judicial source.

Assad and his family sought refuge in Russia, according to Russian authorities, after Islamist-led fighters seized power on December 8.

Two other French warrants had already been issued for Assad's arrest.

One was issued in January for suspected complicity in war crimes related to a bombing in the Syrian city of Deraa in 2017, which claimed the life of a French-Syrian civilian among its victims.

Another warrant was issued in August concerning the bombardment of a press center in a rebel-held city in 2012 that killed two journalists.

Marie Colvin, a 56-year-old American working for Britain's Sunday Times, and French photographer Remi Ochlik, 28, were killed on February 22, 2012, in an explosion in the eastern city of Homs. This incident is being investigated by the French judiciary as a potential crime against humanity and war crime.

Before Syria's new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, visited Russia last week, a Syrian government official told AFP that the new president would request President Vladimir Putin to surrender Assad.

However, following their meeting, neither Sharaa nor Putin publicly mentioned extraditing Assad, whom Russia claims to be protecting on "humanitarian grounds".

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed early last week that the ousted Syrian leader continues to reside in Moscow.

The Syrian civil war, which began in 2011 with Assad's brutal suppression of anti-government protests, has resulted in over half a million deaths.