France’s highest court has annulled a French arrest warrant issued in 2023 against Syria’s former president Bashar al-Assad over his alleged involvement in deadly chemical attacks in 2013.
The Court of Cassation ruled on Friday that Assad, who was still a sitting head of state at the time the warrant was issued, enjoyed full presidential immunity under international law even in cases involving alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
However, the court noted that the situation had changed since Assad’s ouster in December 2024, when Islamist-led rebel groups took control of Syria, effectively ending his decades-long regime.
Presiding judge Christophe Soulard clarified that while the original warrant was annulled due to his immunity at the time, “new arrest warrants can have been, or can be, issued against him,” since he is no longer protected by presidential immunity.
The annulled warrant had accused Assad of complicity in the sarin gas attacks that killed more than 1,000 people on August 4 and 5, 2013, in the towns of Adra and Douma near Damascus. The investigation launched under the principle of universal jurisdiction was built on survivor testimonies, defector accounts, and video evidence. It had also targeted Assad’s brother Maher and two Syrian generals.
French prosecutors originally challenged the warrant, citing Assad’s immunity as a head of state. But the Paris Court of Appeal upheld the warrant in June 2024, prompting another appeal that led to the annulment decision.
Despite the setback for human rights advocates who had hoped the court would make an exception due to the gravity of the allegations, the case remains open. In January 2025, French magistrates issued a second warrant against Assad for suspected complicity in a 2017 bombing in Deraa that killed a French-Syrian civilian.
The Court of Cassation also made a distinction between “personal immunity,” which shields sitting heads of state, and “functional immunity,” granted to state officials for their roles. It ruled that functional immunity can be lifted for severe crimes such as war crimes, upholding a separate indictment of Syria’s former central bank governor Adib Mayaleh — now a French citizen — for allegedly funding Assad’s war efforts.
Assad and his family are believed to have fled to Russia following his ouster. Syria’s civil war, which began in 2011, has claimed over 500,000 lives and displaced millions. His fall on December 8, 2024, ended nearly 50 years of Assad family rule.
