News Desk

An arrest warrant for the President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, was approved by France’s top appeals court concerning alleged complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Assad had previously denied any involvement in a chemical weapon attack case in Syria back in 2013, when several judges tried bringing him into justice last year. Anti-terrorist prosecutors apparently pulled the validity of the French warrant into question, claiming the Syrian president had immunity as a foreign head of state.

The Paris Court of Appeal’s decision rejecting the initial complaint was declared ‘historic’ by the lawyers for the plaintiffs. Clemence Bectarte, Jeanne Sulzer and Clemence has said that this was the first ever time a national court had acknowledged that a sitting head of state does not have complete personal immunity. The court of France is one that allows crimes-against-humanity cases to be held at its courtrooms.

In 2011, Assad’s government had reacted violently to peaceful pro-democracy protests, which had resulted in a civil war that had devastated Syria for a decade. This war had resulted in the deaths of at least half a million people, forcing half of the population to flee their home country, which led to almost six million refugees abroad.

In August of 2013, the then-opposition-held Ghouta region on the outskirts of Damascus fell victim to a chemical attack. It was confirmed to have used rockets which contained the nerve agent sarin by UN experts, but they were abstained from pointing out any culprits. The nerve agent Sarin, affects the enzyme responsible for keeping muscles from contracting. If this enzyme becomes no longer functional, people may not be able to breathe as the muscles are under constant stimulation.