Swiss prosecutors issue arrest warrant for Rifaat al-Assad

Rifaat al-Assad pictured in Spain in 2005. AP

Judges authorised the international warrant for the uncle of the current Syrian president last year, in connection with war crimes committed in 1982.

The judgement by the Federal Criminal Court was published on Wednesday, a year after the court ordered the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) to issue the wanted notice.

The delay was reportedly due to a request by prosecutors to keep the warrant under wraps to increase its chances of success.

In 2021, the Office of the Attorney General already asked the FOJ to issue such a warrant, but the office refused, saying Switzerland was not competent to do so since al-Assad was neither a citizen nor a resident in the Alpine country.

The FOJ also said that no Swiss were among the victims of a 1982 massacre in Hama in Syria, which provides the background to the case.

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However, the Federal Criminal Court disagreed and said a Swiss warrant was legitimate on the grounds that prosecutors first opened an investigation in 2013 while Rifaat al-Assad was staying in a Geneva hotel.

This presence is sufficient to establish Swiss jurisdiction in the prosecution of war crimes, the court said; it also makes it possible to launch an international search warrant.

Following through on it is likely to be complicated however as Rifaat – the younger brother of former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad – returned to Syria in 2021 after 37 years in exile.

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The organisation Trial International, which in September 2013 filed the initial complaint against Rifaat al-Assad for war crimes committed in February 1982, said it welcomed the decision to demand an extradition.

However, “we can obviously regret that it was necessary to wait for the latter’s return to Syria to demand that he appears before Swiss courts”, a legal adviser to Trial International said.

Rifaat al-Assad formerly led the Defense Brigades, an elite Syrian army unit accused of having committed atrocities and massacres during a Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Hama in 1982.

Riots and military operations at the time reportedly left between 10,000 and 40,000 dead.