The court in the Syrian capital Damascus officially issued an arrest warrant in September this year against the country’s former leader Bashar Assad. This was reported by local and international media.
The charges are related to the bloody clashes that began in 2011 in the Dara province of Syria and later spread throughout the country. The violent suppression of protests that took place in the spring of that year caused the deaths of hundreds of civilians and subsequently dragged Syria into years of suffering and bloody war.
According to Syria’s SANA news agency, the families and relatives of the victims filed a formal lawsuit with the court. Assad is accused of deliberate murder, torture of civilians, and unlawful deprivation of liberty.
The Syrian Supreme Court stated that this arrest warrant also enables Assad to be put on an international wanted list via Interpol. This indicates that the process of pressing charges against him has entered a more serious phase.
It is worth noting that although the initial demonstrations in Dara in 2011 carried only peaceful demands, the army’s deployment of armored vehicles and the firing by security forces resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people. These events later paved the way for a large-scale civil war.
Assad ruled Syria from 2000 until December 2024, but after rebels came to power last December, he fled to Russia. He and his family were granted political asylum in Moscow.
French courts have also issued several rulings concerning his name. Notably, in 2013 there was an arrest warrant related to the use of chemical weapons, but it was annulled due to Assad’s presidential immunity at that time. Only in January 2025, after Assad was removed from power, was an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity issued for him in France as well.
Meanwhile, international human rights organizations have for years brought forth horrific accusations against the Assad regime. For example, it has been recorded that more than 30,000 prisoners died between 2011 and 2018 in the “Sednaya” prison due to torture, deprivation of medical care, and starvation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also responded to this news. According to him, Assad “has been hiding in Moscow since last year and is connected with various criminal organizations.” Zelenskyy emphasized that “it is a historic irony that the world’s biggest criminals find refuge in the capital of impunity.”
Thus, Bashar Assad, who has ruled Syria for over a quarter of a century, is approaching a historic stage of accountability. The charges against him are expected to be an important test for human rights and international justice.
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