France will initiate legislative changes to provide extraterritorial jurisdiction to the country’s courts in matters of international crimes, paving the way to prosecute perpetrators of crimes against humanity committed during the war in Syria, the government said Wednesday.

Last week, the National Assembly – the lower house of parliament – adopted a bill authorizing international judicial cooperation between the French government and the United Nations mandated International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) for Syria. The bill will be put before the Senate before the final approval of parliament.

More than 40 proceedings are underway before the French courts to prosecute the perpetrators of the most serious crimes committed in Syria.

“The co-operation with IIIM will allow France to fight against impunity for perpetrators of international crimes,” a joint statement from the Justice Ministry and Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs said Wednesday.

Established in 2016, the IIIM “collects and analyses information and evidence of international crimes committed in Syria to assist criminal proceedings in national, regional or international courts or tribunals that have or may in the future have jurisdiction over these crimes.”

“This agreement will notably allow the transmission of information from the French courts to this Mechanism (IIIM), which is not possible under the current state of the law,” the statement added.

Lack of progress in Cesar investigation in France

The bill for judicial cooperation was initiated in the wake of a judgment delivered last November in the case of Abdulhamid C, a former Syrian intelligence official of President Bashar al-Assad’s security apparatus, that the Court of Cassation lacked extraterritorial jurisdiction to prosecute Syrians living in France for committing war crimes in their country. The court cited the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which allow prosecution of foreign nationals residing in France for crimes committed in their native country only if that state is a party to the Rome Statute.

The decision provoked outrage among human rights organizations, who appealed to French President Emmanuel Macron to urgently amend the country’s legal Code of Criminal Procedure and exercise the principle of “universal jurisdiction” in order to prosecute war criminals living in France.

The joint statement by the ministries said this decision is “subject to further review” and new legislative amendments will be initiated quickly following the next court decisions.

France opened an investigation of a “crime against humanity” against Abdulhamid C, who was living in the country illegally after fleeing Syria over his involvement in the Caesar Files on charges of torture in prison facilities in Syria. The state-sponsored torture came to light after a former Syrian military police employee, “Caesar,” who defected from the regime provided evidence of such torture in the form of thousands of gory photographs of half-naked, starved and burnt corpses in the prisons.

Germany has prosecuted two former Syrian military intelligence agents, Anwar R and Eyad A, also involved in the Cesar Files, on the principle of “universal justice.” (Anadolu Agency)

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