Lebanon receives French judiciary request to locate former Assad regime officials

The Lebanese judiciary received an official request from France on Monday asking for help to locate and arrest former Syrian regime officials suspected of currently being on Lebanese soil, according to Asharq Al-Awsat.

A high-ranking Lebanese judicial source told the Saudi outlet that the request was sent to the public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, Judge Jamal Hajjar.

It explicitly targets the former director of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Directorate, Jamil al-Hassan, the former director of National Security, Ali Mamlouk, and the former head of the Air Intelligence investigation branch, Abdelsalam Mahmoud.

Involved in 'incidents resulting in death of French citizens'

The file submitted by France asks Lebanese authorities to verify whether these officials are currently in the country and, if so, to arrest them to enable their transfer to France.

This procedure is part of an ongoing case targeting the ousted former president, Bashar al-Assad, and members of his regime, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, notably in incidents that resulted in the death of French citizens.

According to the documents submitted, three French nationals of Syrian origin died under torture while detained by Air Force Intelligence and interrogated by Mahmoud.

The source notes that Judge Hajjar has tasked the Internal Security Forces (ISF) Intelligence Branch with conducting the necessary searches. The French request also includes Lebanese phone numbers reportedly in regular contact with the suspects.

Furthermore, Lebanon had already received an Interpol notice asking it to execute a U.S. arrest warrant targeting Hassan and Mamlouk.

In July, the French Court of Appeal annulled a warrant issued seven months earlier against Bashar al-Assad for complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the use of banned chemical weapons against civilians in Eastern Ghouta in August 2013, which killed more than a thousand people.

The court dismissed these proceedings on the basis of the principle of immunity for sitting heads of state before foreign courts.

However, international law provides exceptions to this immunity when heads of state are prosecuted for war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

Since France is one of the countries that allows the prosecution of crimes against humanity in its courts, new arrest warrants may be issued against the former dictator now that he is no longer in power.

In addition, a Syrian delegation led by acting president Ahmad al-Sharaa traveled to Moscow last month and officially requested that Russian authorities extradite Bashar al-Assad to Syria so he could stand trial there.