Reuters news agency reported on Wednesday, November 15 (24 Scorpio) that if a group of French judges ordered the arrest of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher al-Assad, and two other senior officials, they would be accused of using banned chemical weapons against civilians. In Syria, they have exported.

In this report, it is stated that if the order to arrest these four officials will be charged with complicity in crimes against humanity and participation in war crimes, a criminal investigation will be conducted regarding the chemical attacks in the Ghouta area in the suburbs of Damascus in 2013.

According to the report, Doctors Without Borders was supporting three hospitals in Ghouta at that time. On August 21, 2013, as a result of the chemical attack in Ghouta, hundreds of people died and thousands were injured. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that around 1,100 people died in the attack.

The Syrian government is known to be the perpetrator of this attack, but Russia, an important ally of Syria, claims that this attack was carried out by forces opposed to the Assad government in order to involve foreign forces in the war.

This is the first international arrest warrant issued for the president of Syria.

Muzeen Darwish, a lawyer and founder of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), who requested this case in France, said that this is also the first international arrest warrant for the chemical attack in Ghouta.

The Syrian government has said that it has not used chemical weapons in the war, and it has claimed that it has removed these weapons based on the 2013 agreement. However, the joint investigation of the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons shows that the Assad regime has used sarin gas and chlorine many times as a weapon in April 2017.

The Syrian presidency and officials have not yet commented on these provisions.

Darwish said that if Assad’s commander-in-chief is armed, it is mandatory to obtain permission to use such weapons.

He said: “The president is responsible for many crimes in Syria, but with this type of weapon, Sarin gas, it is impossible to be involved and turn a blind eye.”

Arrest orders are rare for government officials because they generally enjoy judicial immunity. However, international law makes exceptions in cases where the head of state is accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

The International Criminal Court currently has two arrest warrants against heads of state, one against Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, and the other against Omar al-Bashir, the former president of Sudan.