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Lawyers and families of victims of enforced disappearance in Syria have filed a criminal complaint before Argentina’s federal judiciary against ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, his wife Asma al-Assad, and several senior officials from his regime.
The Syrian Legal Development Programme said in a statement Tuesday that families of victims of enforced disappearance and survivors of detention in Syria filed a criminal complaint against Assad under Argentina’s federal justice system on Dec. 5.
It said the complaint calls for an investigation into the responsibility of the ousted president, his wife and senior figures in the former Syrian regime for crimes against humanity, including enforced disappearance.
The complaint focuses on the abduction and disappearance of children, including their arbitrary detention, forcible removal from their families, and the long-term concealment of their identities, fate and whereabouts, an issue that has rarely been addressed in previous legal proceedings.
The Syrian Legal Development Programme said the lawsuit was filed in cooperation with the Association of Detainees and the Missing of Sednaya Prison and the Truth and Justice Charter Association, with legal support from the Durrieu Law Firm, an Argentine firm specializing in international criminal law and economic criminal law.
The case was filed under the principle of universal jurisdiction, as Argentina applies the principle of absolute universal jurisdiction under Article 118 of its constitution, allowing its courts to investigate war crimes and genocide committed anywhere in the world.
Investigations have already been opened in similar cases, including those against leaders in Myanmar, Venezuela and Nicaragua. In recent years, several legal attempts have been made to pursue Assad.
At the international level, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court accepted in 2017 a complaint related to crimes allegedly committed by Assad, his brother Maher, the commander of the army’s Fourth Division, and 126 security officials.
French courts have been the most active in pursuing Assad, with investigating judges issuing international arrest warrants against the ousted Syrian president on charges of using chemical weapons in 2013.
Throughout the years of the Syrian uprising, human rights reports have documented cases of children being forcibly disappeared and having their identities altered after being detained alongside their families.
Many were transferred to care institutions without official documentation, had their names changed and were cut off from their families.
Some documents indicate that Asma al-Assad oversaw the placement of children in specific institutions after they were taken from their families in detention centers.
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