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Lawfare harassment of Bashar Assad:
After French Warrant, is the UAE Forced to Arrest Assad Ahead of Climate Summit?
by Enab al Baladi (Opposition Newspaper), published on The Syrian Observer, November 20, 2023
Experts predict that the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs will request the UAE Foreign Ministry’s cooperation, according to Enab Baladi.
After years of persistent demands, a historic judicial precedent has been set as French criminal investigative judges issue arrest warrants for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while he remains in power. Ibrahim al-Olabi, the head of the Syrian Legal Development Program, expresses concern that these warrants may complicate Assad’s participation in the World Climate Action Summit.
To meet legal requirements, Olabi emphasizes that the UAE must either prevent Assad’s presence or take steps to arrest him if he attends, as stipulated by the extradition and legal cooperation agreements signed between France and the UAE in 2007. While Olabi anticipates that the arrest warrants will be communicated to international systems, including Interpol, as of now, they have not been publicly circulated.
International criminal law expert Mu’tasim al-Kilani concurs with Olabi, asserting that the issue underscores the judiciary’s pressure on the signatory state to the extradition agreement. In the event of Bashar al-Assad’s presence, Kilani predicts that the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs will request the UAE Foreign Ministry’s cooperation, facilitated through the French Ministry of Justice, for the extradition of Assad.
Drawing a parallel, Kilani cites the case of Major General Jamil Hassan, the former head of the Syrian regime’s Air Force Intelligence, who faced an official extradition request from Germany while receiving medical treatment in a Lebanese hospital.
