Khaberni - Lawyers and families of victims of enforced disappearance in Syria have filed a criminal complaint before the federal judiciary in Argentina against the ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma al-Assad, and several of his top officials.
The Syrian Legal Development Programme (SLDP) announced in a statement on Tuesday that families of victims of enforced disappearance and survivors of detention in Syria filed a criminal complaint against Assad within the federal justice system in Argentina on December 5th.
The complaint called for an investigation into the responsibility of the ousted president and his wife, and senior officials in the former Syrian regime for crimes against humanity, consisting of enforced disappearances.
The complaint focuses on the issue of child abduction and disappearance, including arbitrary detention of children, removing them from their families, and the long-term concealment of their identities, fates, and whereabouts, an issue not extensively pursued in previous legal actions.
The Syrian Legal Development Programme confirmed that the lawsuit was filed in cooperation with the Association of Detainees and the Missing of Saydnaya Prison and the Covenant of Truth and Justice Association, with legal support from D’Orio law firm, an Argentine firm specializing in international criminal law and economic criminal law.
The case was brought based on the principle of universal jurisdiction, as Argentina adopts the principle of "absolute universal jurisdiction" according to Article 118 of its Constitution, which allows its judiciary to investigate war crimes and genocide committed anywhere in the world. Investigations have indeed been opened in similar cases such as against leaders in Myanmar, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
It is worth noting that the recent years have seen several legal attempts to prosecute Assad. Internationally, the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court accepted a complaint in 2017 related to crimes committed by Assad and his brother Maher, the commander of the Fourth Division of the army, and 126 security figures.
The French judiciary has been the most active in pursuing Assad, as the investigating judges have issued international arrest warrants against the ousted Syrian president on charges of using chemical weapons in 2013.
Throughout the years of the Syrian revolution, human rights reports documented cases of children disappearing and having their identities changed, after being detained with their families, as many of them were transferred to orphanages without official papers, with altered names and severed family ties.
Some documents indicate that Asma al-Assad was overseeing the direction of children to specific institutions after they were removed from their families in detention.
