Syria's President Bashar al-Assad (C-R) meets with Alaeddin Boroujerdi (C-L), Chairman of Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, in the presence of Ali Mamlouk (5th R), head of Syria's national security office in Damascus, in this handout provided by SANA on May 13, 2015.
French prosecutors have issued international arrest warrants for three senior Syrian intelligence and government officials, including security chief Ali Mamlouk, for alleged collusion in war crimes, a defence lawyer and a judicial source said on Monday.
Mamlouk, one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's most senior advisers, was targeted by the order alongside Jamil Hassan, the head of Airforce Intelligence who is already the subject of a German warrant, the sources said.
Another senior Airforce Intelligence official, Abdel Salam Mahmoud, was also named in the French order, one of the sources said.
The warrants stem from a long-running case involving two French-Syrian nationals who were arrested in Syria in November 2013 and had disappeared since.
A Russian delegation led by the country's special envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev, met Syrian regime leader Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Sunday.According to a statement released by the Russian Foreign Ministry, the two sides discussed the results of the four-nation Istanbul Summit which took place on Oct.27.They also discussed issues pertaining to the establishment of the constitutional committee, the statement said.The Istanbul Summit, hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, called for a constitutional committee on Syria for free and fair elections in the war-torn nation.Russian and Syrian participants of the talks agreed to continue their works for removing obstacles on the track of forming the committee, it added.Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity.UN aid trucks reach remote Rukban camp in SyriaSyrian tribes call for boycott of YPG/PKK in Raqqa
Russian delegation meets Assad in Damascus
Damascus confirmed in August 2018 that the father and son, Mazen and Patrick Abdelkader Dabbagh, were dead, the sources said. They include a lawyer for their family, Clemence Bectarte, who said the warrants were issued in mid-October.
Prosecutors in Paris had already opened a probe into the pair's disappearance, starting with a preliminary investigation in 2015, and had found that their house in Damascus had been raided by intelligence officials, the judicial source said.
The French warrants bring charges including collusion in torture, forced disappearances, crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Syrian officials.
Germany - which has universal jurisdiction over war crimes, meaning it can prosecute and try crimes committes abroad - has also taken similar steps, issuing an arrest warrant in June for Airforce Intelligence official Hassan. Efforts to prosecute members of the Assad government have repeatedly failed because Syria is not a signatory of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague. Russia and China have also vetoed attempts to give the ICC a mandate to set up a special tribunal for Syria.
Killing of a local tribal leader in alleged armed attack by the terrorist YPG/PKK group has risen tension in Raqqa city of war-torn Syria.Following the assassination of its leader Bashir Faisal al-Huwaidi, members of Sabha tribe on Sunday called for boycott of YPG/PKK, which is held responsible for the attack, in the region.Al-Huwaidi -- known opposed to the terrorist group -- was killed on Saturday in Raqqa.Many other regional tribes have also joined Sabha's condemnation of the attack, announcing their support for the boycott until the culprit is revealed.Refugees from Raqqah want to return to their homelandTurkey calls on US to terminate engagement with PYD/YPGYPK/PKK terror in RaqqaFor the past year, the YPG/PKK has oppressed and terrorized Raqqa’s local population -- as it has in other areas under its control.It has forcibly recruited civilians into its ranks and has prevented many local residents from rebuilding their homes, many of which were destroyed last year by intense coalition airstrikes.The YPG/PKK, however, does not provide any public services, while residents accused of having links with the opposition frequently face arbitrary detention.In a report published last December, the U.K.-based Syrian Network for Human Rights said a total of 2,323 civilians had been killed in Raqqa in the period from November 2016 to October 2017.Erdoğan calls on terrorists to leave Syria's ManbijUN aid trucks reach remote Rukban camp in SyriaTurkey may position howitzer batteries in Syria, says defense analyst
Syrian tribes call for boycott of YPG/PKK in Raqqa