France issues new arrest warrant against Bashar al-Assad

A judicial source told Agence France-Presse that French authorities have issued this latest international arrest warrant against Bashar al-Assad for carrying out chemical attacks in 2013, adding to two previous warrants issued against him by the French judiciary.

On July 25, 2025, the French Court of Cassation annulled the first warrant issued in November 2023, citing the principle of absolute immunity for sitting heads of state, as Assad was still in power at the time. The court clarified, however, that the case could be reopened following Assad’s removal from office on December 8, 2024.

The new warrant accuses Assad of involvement in chemical attacks in Adra and Douma on August 5, 2013, which injured around 450 people, and in Eastern Ghouta on August 21, 2013, which killed more than 1,000 people using sarin gas, according to US intelligence reports.

This latest decision adds to two previous French arrest warrants issued against Assad, who is currently exiled in Russia. On January 20, 2025, a warrant was issued accusing him of complicity in a war crime linked to the shelling of a residential area in Daraa in 2017.

Another warrant, issued on August 19, 2025, accuses him of complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity over the shelling of a journalists’ center in Homs in 2012, which resulted in the deaths of American journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik.

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ANHA