• The Syrian opposition alleges that one of the attacks in August 2013 killed around 1,400 people, including over 400 children.
• The request was made on judicial grounds, two days after an appeals court upheld the arrest order.
• France issued the first arrest warrant for a sitting foreign head of state in November.

On Tuesday, prosecutors announced that they had requested France’s highest court to review the legality of a French arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar Assad regarding deadly chemical attacks on Syrian soil in 2013.

The Syrian opposition alleges that 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.

Prosecutors announced on Friday that they had made the request to the Court of Cassation on judicial grounds, two days after an appeals court upheld the arrest order.

“This decision is by no means political. It is about having a legal question resolved,” the prosecutors told news.

France issued what is believed to be the first arrest warrant for a sitting foreign head of state in November.

Investigative magistrates specialized in crimes against humanity issued the warrant after several rights groups filed a complaint against Assad for his alleged role in the chain of command during the chemical attacks in the capital’s suburbs on August 4, 5, and 21, 2013.

However, prosecutors from a unit specialized in investigating “terrorist” attacks have sought to annul it, although they do not question the grounds for such an arrest. They argue that immunity for foreign heads of state should only be lifted for international prosecutions, such as at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), the lawyers’ association Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), and the Syrian Archive, an organization documenting human rights violations in Syria, filed the initial complaint.

Mazen Darwish, head of SCM, expressed indignation.

“We view (the) filing of the appeal as a political maneuver aimed at protecting dictators and war criminals,” he told news.

Lawyers Jeanne Sulzer and Clemence Witt, representing the plaintiffs, stated that the appeal to the Court of Cassation “again threatens the efforts of victims to have Bashar Assad judged in an independent jurisdiction.”

A UN report on the August 21 attacks confirmed clear evidence of sarin gas use in Moadamiyet Al-Sham, Zamalka, and Ein Tarma in the Ghouta suburbs of Damascus.

Since it broke out in March 2011 with the Damascus authorities’ brutal repression of anti-government protests, Syria’s civil war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions.

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