France issues arrest warrant for Bashar Al-Assad

French authorities have issued arrest warrants for ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and six top former officials in connection with the 2012 bombardment of Homs that killed two journalists, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Marie Colvin, 56, an American correspondent for Britain’s The Sunday Times, and 28-year-old French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed on Feb. 22, 2012, in an explosion in eastern Homs. French judicial authorities are investigating the attack as both a potential war crime and a crime against humanity.

British photographer Paul Conroy, French reporter Edith Bouvier, and Syrian translator Wael Omar were wounded in the assault on the informal press centre where the journalists were working.

Assad fled to Russia with his family after being ousted at the end of 2024, though his exact location remains unconfirmed.

The arrest warrants also target Assad’s brother Maher al-Assad, then-de facto head of the 4th Syrian Armoured Division; intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk; and 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 the parents of Ochlik.

The FIDH noted that the journalists had secretly entered the besieged city to “document the crimes committed by Bashar al-Assad's regime” and were victims of a “targeted bombing.”

Mazen Darwish, lawyer and director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), added, “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 in order to limit media coverage of its crimes and force them to leave the city and the country.”