The federal criminal court plans to dismiss the proceedings against an uncle of the deposed Syrian president, Rifaat al-Assad, prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the Sunday press and an NGO.
Rifaat al-Assad, former commander of the Defense Brigades, is accused of having, in the context of the armed conflict and the widespread attack launched in February 1982 against the population of this Syrian town, “ordered murders, acts of torture, cruel treatment and illegal detention.
This massacre, which left between 10,000 and 40,000 dead, earned him the nickname “butcher of Hama”. His trial date has not been announced.
On November 29, a few days before the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, driven from power by a coalition of rebel factions, the federal criminal court informed the civil parties, victims, “that it wishes to close the procedure”, reported on Sunday in Le Matin Dimanche and SonntagsZeitung.
>> Read also: An uncle of Bashar al-Assad referred to the Federal Criminal Court
Maladies
According to these newspapers, the court informed the parties that the octogenarian accused suffers from illnesses which prevent him from traveling and participating in his trial.
It was following a denunciation from the Swiss non-governmental organization Trial International, in December 2013, that the federal prosecutor’s office opened the criminal procedure. Alerted by Syrians living in Geneva, the NGO found his trace in a large Geneva hotel.
Universal jurisdiction
“In the event of closure, the opportunity for an appeal will be examined and it is very likely that this decision will be contested,” he indicated, specifying however that “Trial does not have the capacity to appeal, if there is recourse it will be due to the will of the complaining parties, victims”.
The federal court opened the procedure under universal jurisdiction and the imprescriptibility of war crimes.
Presenting himself as an opponent of Bashar al-Assad, Rifaat al-Assad returned to Syria in 2021 after 37 years of exile in France, to escape a 4-year prison sentence which had been imposed on him in France for money laundering. organized gang and embezzlement of Syrian public funds. He left his country in 1984 after a failed coup attempt against his brother Hafez.
hkr with afp
Swiss
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