On Friday, the French prosecution requested life sentences for three Syrian officials accused of committing crimes against humanity. French media reported that the public prosecutor at the Paris court of assizes called for the lifelong imprisonment of the three officials.
The prosecutor also insisted on maintaining the international arrest warrants previously issued against the three Syrian officials: Ali Mamlouk, Jamil Hassan, and Abdelsalam Mahmoud. This came following the second session of the trial held at the courthouse in Paris for General Ali Mamlouk, the special advisor to the presidency for security affairs and the former head of the National Security Office in Syria, General Jamil Hassan, the former head of air force intelligence, and Colonel Abdelsalam Mahmoud, the former head of investigations at the air force intelligence branch in Damascus.
The second day of the trial, which continued until Friday, focused on hearing testimonies from Catherine Marchi-Uhel, the former head of the International, Impartial, and Independent Mechanism, an entity established by the UN General Assembly to assist in the investigation and prosecution of individuals responsible for crimes committed in Syria since 2011, as well as testimony from French investigator Véronique Saïdis.
It is noteworthy that the Syrian government has denied accusations of mass murder and torture in the war, which the United Nations states has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands. Currently, there are no cases in international courts as Syria is not a member of the International Criminal Court.
