France issues arrest warrants for Syria’s Assad, 6 officials over 2012 journalist killings

ISTANBUL

French judicial authorities have issued arrest warrants for former Syrian leader Bashar Assad along with six former senior officials over the 2012 killing of journalists in Homs, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said on Tuesday.

"Investigating judges of the French War Crimes Unit have issued arrest warrants for seven former senior Syrian officials, including fallen President Bashar al-Assad," FIDH wrote in a statement.

Assad and six other officials are accused of complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity targeting French and international journalists Remi Ochlik, Edith Bouvier, Marie Colvin, and Paul Conroy, as well as interpreter Wael al-Oma who were killed or wounded in the attack on an informal press center in Homs, Syria in 2012.

"The issuance of these seven arrest warrants is a decisive step that paves the way for a trial in France for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Bashar al-Assad’s regime against Rémi Ochlik and his fellow journalists who were in the informal press center in Bab Amr in February 2012," said Clemence Bectarte, lawyer for the FIDH.

Mazen Darwish, lawyer and director general of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), also said that the judicial investigation established that the attack on the press center was part of "Syrian regime’s explicit intention to target foreign journalists in order to limit media coverage of its crimes and force them to leave the city and the country."

FIDH added that French authorities have issued 21 arrest warrants for senior Syrian officials to date, with three for Assad.