France launches war crimes probe into Syrian regime

PARIS

France has revealed that it is investigating Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime for alleged war crimes committed between 2011 and 2013.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters in New York that the French authorities have opened a probe as major powers, including those from Russia and the U.S., clashed over Syria’s future at the UN General Assembly.

According to French daily Le Figaro, Paris prosecutors launched the criminal probe in mid-September after a request from the French Foreign Ministry.

The French daily reported on Wednesday that investigators are using some 55,000 graphic photographs provided by a former Syrian army photographer known as ‘Caesar’.

The photographer defected and fled the country in 2013.

Fabius said: "Faced with these crimes that offend the human conscience, to this bureaucratic horror [and] faced with this denial of the values of humanity, it is our responsibility to act against the impunity of the assassins."

The investigation comes amid discussions over the ongoing Syrian war at the UN in New York.

On Monday, French President Francois Hollande excluded a role for Assad in any political solution to the conflict.

"We cannot make the victim and the executioner work together," Hollande told the UN.