FRENCH COURT ISSUES ARREST WARRANT FOR SYRIAN EX-LEADER, BASHAR AL-ASSAD OVER JOURNALIST KILLINGS
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Agency report
French judicial authorities have issued arrest warrants for ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and six other senior former officials over the 2012 bombardment of a rebel-held city that killed two journalists, lawyers confirmed on Tuesday.
Marie Colvin, 56, an American reporter for The Sunday Times of Britain, and French photographer Remi Ochlik, 28, were killed on February 22, 2012, in an explosion in Homs. The French judiciary is investigating the incident as both a potential crime against humanity and a war crime.
British photographer Paul Conroy, French reporter Edith Bouvier, and Syrian translator Wael Omar were injured during the attack on the makeshift press centre where they had been working.
Assad fled with his family to Russia after being ousted by Islamist rebels at the end of 2024, though his exact location remains unconfirmed.
Alongside Assad, the warrants also target his brother Maher al-Assad, then de facto head of the 4th Syrian armoured division, intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk, and former army chief of staff Ali Ayoub.
“The issuing of the seven arrest warrants is a decisive step that paves the way for a trial in France for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Bashar al-Assad’s regime,” said Clemence Bectarte, lawyer for the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and for Ochlik’s parents.
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The FIDH explained that the journalists had clandestinely entered the besieged city to “document the crimes committed by Bashar al-Assad’s regime” and ultimately became victims of a “targeted bombing.”
“The investigation clearly established that the attack on the informal press centre was part of the Syrian regime’s explicit intention to target foreign journalists to limit media coverage of its crimes and force them to leave the city and the country,” said Mazen Darwish, lawyer and director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM).
Colvin, known for her fearless reporting and signature black eye patch—worn after losing sight in one eye during Sri Lanka’s civil war—was later honoured in the Golden Globe-nominated film A Private War.
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