Can toppled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his operatives be brought to justice?

euronews (in English)

Despite the legal and political barriers to prosecution, human rights experts are optimistic that al-Assad and regime officials could one day be held accountable for their crimes in a court of law.

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00:00Can Bashar al-Assad be prosecuted?

00:08The al-Assad regime has been toppled, but its scars on Syria and its people still run

00:14deep.

00:15BN and other organizations have documented widespread torture, rape, mass executions

00:21and other abuses committed by al-Assad's government over the past quarter of a century.

00:27But there is no clear-cut route towards prosecuting the operatives responsible and delivering

00:32justice to the victims.

00:34Let's break down why.

00:36The new Syrian administration, led by the rebels of the HTS group, has vowed to bring

00:40the officers responsible for torture under the previous regime to justice in the Syrian

00:45courts.

00:46But al-Assad has been granted asylum in Russia and there is no political motive for the Kremlin

00:51to extradite him, at least for now.

00:54The Hague-based International Criminal Court is the most obvious international court of

00:58law for prosecuting individuals for such serious crimes.

01:02But the ICC does not have jurisdiction over Syria as the country is not a state party

01:06to the court's treaty, the Treaty of Rome.

01:09There is a workaround.

01:11The UN Security Council can in principle refer a case to the ICC, granting it jurisdiction.

01:18But that would likely be vetoed by Russia, which has offered refuge to al-Assad and his

01:22family.

01:23Some experts say much will depend on the new Syrian administration and their political

01:27will to become an ICC member.

01:29Universal jurisdiction also allows someone who has committed a serious crime in Syria

01:34to be held accountable before a non-Syrian court.

01:37For example, a French court has issued international arrest warrants for Bashar al-Assad, his brother

01:44and two officials over an attack against civilians using chemical weapons in 2013.

01:51Other courts in Germany and the US have issued warrants for the arrest of other officials

01:56of the al-Assad regime.

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