This is a first since the start of the conflict. French investigating judges are investigating chemical attacks perpetrated in 2013 in Syria and blamed on the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which were the subject of a complaint filed in March at the Paris judicial court, we have learned Friday from the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM).
Following this complaint with the constitution of civil party, a judicial investigation was opened at the end of April for “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes”, confirmed to AFP a judicial source.
Hearings and exhibits
“We welcome the opening of this investigation,” Me Jeanne Sulzer and Me Clémence Witt, SCM lawyers, told AFP. At the beginning of March, SCM and the NGOs Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) and Syrian Archive had requested that magistrates from the “crimes against humanity” pole of the Paris court carry out investigations into the attacks perpetrated on the night of August 4 to 5. in Adra and Douma (450 wounded) and on August 21, 2013 in Eastern Ghouta, where more than a thousand people, according to American intelligence, were killed by sarin gas.
On Friday, the managing director of SCM, Mazen Darwish, was heard as a civil party by one of the judges. During this hearing, he presented “491 additional exhibits, including numerous photos and videos, as well as maps which precisely identify the locations of the attacks and shelling,” according to a statement from SCM.
A “very important” investigation
“This is a very important investigation,” Mazen Darwish told AFP at the end of his hearing. “It’s not just about the Syrian victims, it’s about the safety of all of us. If we agree to allow these crimes to be carried out without anyone being held to account, it could be that one day, these chemical weapons will be used here in Paris, ”he said.
The three NGOs had already filed a complaint in October 2020 with the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office, which targeted the facts of 2013 but also a sarin gas attack perpetrated in April 2017 in Khan Cheikhoun, between Damascus and Aleppo. In April, they also filed, along with a fourth NGO – Civil Rights Defenders – a complaint in Sweden for the attacks in 2013 and 2017.