{"id":2514,"date":"2025-09-02T20:40:41","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T20:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/09\/02\/france-issues-arrest-warrant-for-syrias-assad-over-killing-of-journalists\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T20:40:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T20:40:41","slug":"france-issues-arrest-warrant-for-syrias-assad-over-killing-of-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/09\/02\/france-issues-arrest-warrant-for-syrias-assad-over-killing-of-journalists\/","title":{"rendered":"France issues arrest warrant for Syria\u2019s Assad over killing of journalists"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A French court issues the warrants in connection with the bombing of a press centre in Homs in 2012 that killed two journalists.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A French court has issued arrest warrants for seven former top Syrian officials, including ex-President Bashar al-Assad, for the bombing of a press centre in Homs, a judicial source and a human rights organisation said.<\/p>\n

A rocket hit the \u201cinformal press centre\u201d on February 22, 2012, killing renowned US journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik and injuring two other journalists and an interpreter.<\/p>\n

Besides al-Assad, who fled to Russia in December 2024 when opposition fighters seized control of Syria<\/a>, warrants have also been issued against his brother Maher al-Assad, who was the de facto head of the 4th Syrian armoured division at the time, intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk, and then-army chief of staff Ali Ayoub, among others.<\/p>\n

France allows the filing of crimes against humanity cases in its courts.<\/p>\n

The Syrian Centre for Media and Free Expression said that the French judicial investigation had found that the attack had deliberately targeted foreign journalists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe judicial investigation clearly established that the attack on the informal press centre in Bab Amr was part of the Syrian regime\u2019s explicit intention to target foreign journalists in order to limit media coverage of its crimes and force them to leave the city and the country,\u201d said Mazen Darwish, a lawyer and the general director of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression, in a statement.<\/p>\n

Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) also noted\u00a0that the journalists had clandestinely entered the besieged city to \u201cdocument the crimes committed by Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime\u201d and were victims of a \u201ctargeted bombing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Clemence Bectarte, lawyer FIDH and Ochlik\u2019s parents, welcomed Tuesday\u2019s warrants and called it \u201ca decisive step that paves the way for a trial in France for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

British photographer Paul Conroy, French reporter Edith Bouvier and Syrian translator Wael Omar were also wounded in the attack on the informal press centre where they had been working.<\/p>\n

Colvin was known for her fearless reporting and signature black eye patch, which she wore after losing sight in one eye in an explosion during Sri Lanka\u2019s civil war. Her career was celebrated in a Golden Globe-nominated film, A Private War.<\/p>\n

Homs, in western Syria, was a major rebel stronghold during the Syrian war and was besieged by al-Assad government forces from 2011 to 2014. The siege ended with rebel forces withdrawing from the city.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A French court issues the warrants in connection with the bombing of a press centre in Homs in 2012 that killed two journalists. A French court has issued arrest warrants for seven former top Syrian officials, including ex-President Bashar al-Assad, for the bombing of a press centre in Homs, a judicial source and a human … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}