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Syria issued an arrest warrant on Saturday for former President Bashar al-Assad, paving the way for international pursuit of the ousted leader through Interpol on charges including premeditated murder and torture.
The warrant cites charges of premeditated murder, torture leading to death, and deprivation of liberty, according to the state-run SANA news agency.
The charges stem from lawsuits filed by families of victims in the southern governorate of Daraa over events that occurred in November 2011.
"An arrest warrant was issued against criminal Bashar al-Assad on charges related to the Daraa events of 2011," Judge Tawfiq al-Ali told the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
"This judicial decision opens the door for the warrant to be circulated through Interpol and for the case to be pursued internationally," al-Ali added.
The judge said the measure followed lawsuits filed by families of victims from the 2011 events in Daraa, the birthplace of the Syrian uprising in March 2011 against the Assad regime.
Assad and his family fled to Russia in December after opposition groups toppled his government, ending nearly 25 years of rule and concluding the Ba'ath Party regime that had controlled Syria since 1963.
The collapse followed 13 years of civil war that began with pro-democracy protests and subsequent crackdowns by Assad's forces.
A new transitional administration led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa was formed in January.
Since Assad's ouster in late 2024, Syria's new administration has pursued political and economic reforms while promoting social cohesion and working to expand cooperation with regional and international partners.
The former president faced accusations, which the evidence from the footage seems to support, of using chemical weapons against civilians and implementing widespread torture during the Syrian conflict.
More than 600,000 people were killed in Syria's civil war as of March 2024, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a U.K.-based monitoring group.
The United Nations reported that more than half of Syria's prewar population of 23 million had been displaced, either to other regions within Syria or to other countries.
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