Rifaat al-Assad to face trial in Switzerland
The uncle of current Syrian president Bashar al-Assad will be tried by the Swiss Federal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) said on Tuesday.
The indictment “is based on events that took place in February 1982 in the city of Hama, in the context of the armed conflict between Syrian armed forces and the Islamist opposition”, the OAG said in a statement.
The former Syrian vice-president and former Syrian army officer is being prosecuted for “war crimes and crimes against humanity”.
+ Read more: universal jurisdiction gains ground in Switzerland
The Swiss prosecutor’s office is specifically accusing al-Assad of having “in his capacity as commander of the Defence Brigades (“Saraya al Difaa”, in Arabic) and commander of operations in Hama, ordered murders, acts of torture, cruel treatment and illegal detentions”.
According to the OAG, the Defence Brigades “were the main forces in charge of repression” in Syria.
“In this context, several thousand civilians were allegedly subjected to various abuses, ranging from immediate execution to detention and torture in specially-created centres, as described in several testimonies,” it continued.
Under the former Military Penal Code (MPC), war crimes have been punishable in Switzerland since 1968, regardless of the location or citizenship of the perpetrator or victim.
The OAG first opened criminal proceedings for war crimes involving al-Assad in December 2013, following a report by the Swiss NGO TRIAL International.
The OAG subsequently took the view that the “murders of which the defendant is accused can also be classified as crimes against humanity”, it stated in its press release.
+ From August 2023: Swiss issue arrest warrant for Rifaat al-Assad
The criminal proceedings were opened on the basis of universal jurisdiction and the fact that war crimes are not subject to the statute of limitations, explained the OAG. In this context, a police check had established al-Assad was present in Switzerland at the time the investigation was opened.
Several victims have joined as plaintiffs in the criminal proceedings. A trial date has not yet been set.
Rifaat al-Assad returned to Syria in 2021 after several decades in exile. Two years ago, the Swiss judiciary issued a wanted notice, but kept it secret until 2023 so that Rifaat al-Assad could not take steps to evade it.
Translated from French by DeepL/dos
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