Three Syrian generals from Bashar al-Assad’s regime are on trial in Paris starting this Tuesday, before the Assize Court. They are accused of having played a role in the death of two dual nationals, a father and his son, in 2010. Targeted by international arrest warrants, Ali Mamlouk, former head of the National Security Bureau, the highest authority of intelligence in Syria, Jamil Hassan, former director of the much-feared intelligence services of the air force and Abdel Salam Mahmoud, former director of the investigation branch of these services, are also accused of complicity in war crimes.
According to the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), this trial “will judge the highest officials of the regime never prosecuted since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in March 2011”. Trials on the abuses of the Syrian regime have already taken place elsewhere in Europe, notably in Germany. But in these cases, the people prosecuted were of lower rank, and present at the hearings.
Death of two Franco-Syrians
In this case, the three men are suspected of having played a role, to varying degrees, in the forced disappearance and death of Mazzen Dabbagh and his son Patrick, two Franco-Syrians who lived in Damascus. The two victims, a student at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences of Damascus born in 1993 for the son and principal education advisor at the French School of Damascus born in 1956 for the father, were arrested in November 2013 by officers claiming to belong to the Syrian Air Force intelligence services.
According to Mazzen Dabbagh’s brother-in-law, arrested at the same time as him but released two days later, the two men were transferred to Mezzeh airport, the headquarters of a place of detention denounced as one of the worst torture centers of the regime.