- In 2018, five years after 20-year-old Patrick Dabur and his father Mazen were abducted by Syrian soldiers at night, a death certificate confirmed they would never return home.
- A Paris court is seeking to determine whether Syrian intelligence officials were responsible for their deaths.
- Hearings that began this week will air allegations that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has used arbitrary detention and torture.
At night, Syrian soldiers said they would first search for his 20-year-old son Patrick, a psychology student at Damascus University, and take him in for questioning.
The next night they returned to pick up their father, Mazen.
Five years later, in 2018, a death certificate from Syrian authorities confirmed to the Dabbar family that the French-Syrian father and son would never return home.
In a landmark case, a Paris court will decide this week whether the most senior Syrian intelligence officials on trial at the European Court of Justice for crimes allegedly committed during Syria’s civil war were responsible for the disappearances and deaths. Seeking judgment.
The four-day hearing began on Tuesday and is expected to lay out chilling claims that President Bashar al-Assad’s government has widely used torture and arbitrary detention to maintain power during the conflict. It is expected. The conflict is now in its 14th year.
The French trial comes as Assad regains an aura of international respectability and begins to shed his years-long pariah status stemming from violence unleashed on his opponents. Human rights groups party to the French lawsuit hope it will bring renewed attention to the alleged atrocities.
This photo published by the Syrian state news agency SANA on November 9, 2019 shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad giving a speech in Damascus, Syria. In a landmark case, a Paris court will this week, Tuesday, May 21, 2024, seek a verdict on whether Syrian intelligence officials were responsible for the disappearance and deaths of Patrick Dabbagh and Matzen Dabbagh It is planned. The hearing is expected to reveal chilling allegations that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has widely used torture and arbitrary detention to maintain power in Syria’s civil war. (AP communication via SANA)
The people involved are as follows.
defendant
—Ali Mamluk, former director of national security who oversees Syria’s security and intelligence services. He is said to have worked directly with President Assad. He is currently in his late 70s.
— Jamil Hassan, former Air Force intelligence chief. Survivors testifying in the case claim they met him at a detention center in the capital Damascus, where the Daburs were allegedly being held. Early 70s.
— Salam Mahmoud, in his mid-60s, is a former law enforcement official at the Damascus military airport, where the detention center is believed to be located. Mahmoud is said to have confiscated the house after the Dabags were taken away.
The three men are accused of arresting, torturing and killing a father and son, and of inciting and directing the commission of a crime against humanity and causing their subordinates to commit a crime. They are also accused of confiscating their homes and letting the people they allegedly killed go free to Air Force intelligence.
The defendant is being tried in absentia. A French magistrate issued arrest warrants for them in October 2018, even though he acknowledged there was little chance they would be extradited to France. There was no defense attorney to represent them when the hearing began Tuesday morning. A French magistrate ruled that France did not have diplomatic immunity.
Patrick Beaudoin, a lawyer for a human rights group involved in the case, said: “The three defendants are high-ranking figures in Syria’s repression and torture system. This gives this trial a special atmosphere. No,” he said.
“The legal files are very detailed, systematic, very diverse, and full of evidence of absolutely huge acts of torture,” Baudouin said.
Why is the trial being held in France?
French magistrates were able to pursue the case because Patrick and Mazen Dabur had dual French and Syrian citizenship. The investigation into their disappearance began in 2015, when Mazen’s brother Obeida Daberg gave a statement to investigators already investigating war crimes in Syria.
Obeida Daba lives in France with his wife Hanane and is also a party to the case. According to a court indictment obtained by The Associated Press, he told French investigators that on Nov. 3, 2013, at the height of anti-government protests inspired by the Arab Spring, at around 11 p.m. Patrick said a man or four soldiers came to pick him up. brutal repression. The soldiers identified themselves as members of the Syrian Air Force’s intelligence wing. Obeida also testified that they searched his home and took his cellphone, computer and cash.
The brothers said they returned the next night to pick up Mazen Dabag, 54, who worked as a counselor at a French-speaking high school in Damascus, and also stole his new car.
The death certificates say Patrick died on January 21, 2014, and Mazen on November 25, 2017, but it does not say where or how they died.
Trial expected to reveal torture
In establishing their case, French investigative judges collected evidence from deserters from the Syrian government and army, as well as from prison survivors.
Testimonies from survivors, who spoke anonymously, accused them of rape and of being denied food and water. Beatings on the legs, knees, and other areas with whips, cables, and batons. Electric shock and acid or boiling water burns. To be suspended from the ceiling for several hours or days.
Investigators also examined images provided by Syrian police officers who anonymously submitted photos of thousands of torture victims.
Cameras are generally prohibited in French criminal trials, but this trial will be filmed for historical purposes.
New French investigation targets Assad
In a separate investigation, French magistrates also target Assad himself, but face questions about whether he can benefit from presidential immunity.
Magistrates are investigating a 2013 chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus that killed more than 1,000 people and injured thousands more. Magistrates issued international arrest warrants for Assad, his brother Maher Assad, commander of the 4th Armored Division, and two members of the Syrian army. General Ghassan Abbas and General Bassam al-Hassan were charged with war crimes and complicity in crimes against humanity.
The French investigation began in 2021 in response to a criminal complaint filed by a survivor of the attack. The investigation is based on the principle of universal jurisdiction, which means that in some cases it can be pursued outside the country where the crime occurred.
The Syrian government and its allies deny responsibility for the attack.
France’s warrant is highly unusual for a sitting world leader and is seen as a strong signal of Assad’s leadership as some countries welcome his return to diplomacy. Victims’ lawyers hailed the warrant as “an important milestone in the fight against impunity.”
The Paris Court of Appeal is considering whether Assad enjoys absolute immunity as head of state. French prosecutors have asked a closed hearing on May 15 to rule on the matter.
The process does not affect arrest warrants for President Assad’s brother and the generals.
Other countries are also taking action.
In March, Swiss prosecutors accused Rifat Assad, the president’s uncle and former Syrian vice president, of ordering murder and torture to suppress an uprising by the Islamist movement the Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama more than 40 years ago. Indicted. Thousands of people were killed.
In April, a Stockholm court put a former Syrian army general living in Sweden on trial for his alleged involvement in a 2012 war crime.
German courts have convicted two former Syrian soldiers for crimes against humanity in 2021 and 2022. One was sentenced to life in prison, and the other was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for conspiracy. They had claimed refugee status in Germany before former detainees were recognized in Germany. They were tried on the principle of universal jurisdiction.
