PARIS
\nProsecutors said Tuesday they had asked France\u2019s highest court to review the legality of a French arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar Assad over deadly chemical attacks on Syrian soil in 2013.
\nSyrian opposition say one of those attacks in August 2013 on the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus killed around 1,400 people, including more than 400 children, in one of the many horrors of the 13-year civil war.
\nProsecutors said they had made the request to the Court of Cassation on Friday on judicial grounds, two days after an appeals court upheld the arrest order.
\n\u201cThis decision is by no means political. It is about having a legal question resolved,\u201d the prosecutors told AFP.
\nFrance is believed to have been the first country to issue an arrest warrant for a sitting foreign head of state in November.
\nInvestigative magistrates specialized in so-called crimes against humanity, issued the warrant after several rights groups filed a complaint against Assad for his role in the chain of command for the alleged chemical attacks in the capital\u2019s suburbs on August 4, 5 and 21, 2013.
\nBut prosecutors from a unit specialized in investigating \u201cterrorist\u201d attacks have sought to annul it, although they do not question the grounds for such an arrest.
\nThey argue that immunity for foreign heads of state should only be lifted for international prosecutions, such as at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
\nThe Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), lawyers\u2019 association Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) and the Syrian Archive, an organization documenting human rights violations in Syria, filed the initial complaint.
\nSCM head Mazen Darwish was indignant. \u201cWe view (the) filing of the appeal as a political maneuver aimed at protecting dictators and war criminals,\u201d he told media.
\nLawyers Jeanne Sulzer and Clemence Witt, who are representing the plaintiffs, said the appeal to the Court of Cassation \u201cagain threatens the efforts of victims to have Bashar Assad judged in an independent jurisdiction.\u201d
\nA UN report on the August 21 attacks said there was clear evidence sarin gas was used in Moadamiyet Al-Sham as well as Zamalka and Ein Tarma in the Ghouta suburbs of Damascus.
\nSyria\u2019s civil war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions since it broke out in March 2011 with the Damascus authorities\u2019 brutal repression of anti-government protests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS Prosecutors said Tuesday they had asked France\u2019s highest court to review the legality of a French arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar Assad over deadly chemical attacks on Syrian soil in 2013. Syrian opposition say one of those attacks in August 2013 on the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus killed around 1,400 people, including more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-416083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n