3 senior Syrian government officers to go on trial in Paris
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Paris) – Three senior officers of the Syrian government are going on trial in Paris on Tuesday in charges of committing crimes against humanity and war crimes linked to disappearance and death.
The three officers are accused of complicity in arresting and then torturing to death a father and his son from the Dabbagh family.
The officers are Ali Mamlouk, 78, head of the Syrian secret services and security adviser to President Bashar al-Assad, Jamil Hassan, 72, head of the Syrian air force intelligence unit until 2019 and a member of Assad’s entourage, and Abdel Salam Mahmoud, in his early 60s, intelligence director at the notorious Mezzeh prison.
This is the first time that such senior figures close to the Syrian president will be held to account.
Campaigners said the trial would strengthen calls for universal justice and give hope to the families of more than 111,000 people who have disappeared in Syria since 2011.
In November 2013, Air Force intelligence of the Syrian government arrested Mazzen Dabbagh and his son, Patrick, Franco-Syrian nationals, and detained them at Mezzeh prison in Damascus.
Mazzen was a counselor at the French Lycée in Damascus, and his son was an arts and humanities student. The father was accused of failing to raise his son correctly.
In July 2018, the Dabbagh family received a formal notification that their family members had died. The document said that Patrick died on 21 Jan. 21, 2014, and his father on Nov. 25, 2017, without revealing the detention center where they were held and the death circumstances.
The family filed a complaint in 2016 against the aforementioned officials supported by the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM).
“It is historic because these are the most senior officers from the Syrian regime to be put on trial,” said Clémence Bectarte, a French lawyer representing the Dabbagh family.
A French court is expected to decide whether the investigation into Assad can go ahead later this month.
By Jwan Shekaki