Rifaat al-Assad

Former Syrian Vice-President Rifaat al-Assad will stand trial in Switzerland for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) has just charged with ordering homicides, acts of torture, cruel treatments and illegal detentions perpetrated in the course of the February 1982 massacre in the city of Hama, Syria. With today’s indictment, the victims can finally look forward to justice being done. Rifaat al-Assad, the uncle of current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, will be one of the highest-ranking government officials ever to be tried for international crimes based on the principle of universal jurisdiction.

Ten years ago, to the day, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) of Switzerland, opened a criminal investigation for war crimes against former Syrian Vice-President Rifaat al-Assad. A criminal complaint had been filed by TRIAL International just days prior, while Mr. al-Assad was present in Switzerland. Throughout these years, TRIAL International has continued to support the plaintiffs in their quest for justice.

The Swiss Federal Criminal Court (FCC) has ordered the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) to issue an international arrest warrant for former Vice President Rifaat al-Assad in connection with the proceedings he has been facing since 2013 for his alleged role in the massive war crimes committed in the city of Hama in February 1982. TRIAL International calls on the Swiss authorities to swiftly indict and bring to trial the man nicknamed the “Butcher of Hama”, now aged 85.

On the 13th of December 2013, alerted of his presence in Switzerland, TRIAL International filed a criminal denunciation against Rifaat Al-Assad before the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) for his alleged responsibility in the massacre that took place in the Syrian city of Hama in February 1982.

Today, TRIAL International and the Syrian human rights defender Anwar Al-Bunni discuss the key moments of the case, which is still being investigated in Switzerland and not yet closed, nine years after the opening of the proceedings against the man known as “the Butcher of Hama”.

After 36 years of forced exile in France, Rifaat al-Assad has returned to Syria and escaped from the French justice system. The former Syrian vice-president, despite having been sentenced on appeal in Paris last month to four years in prison for ill-gotten gains, was able to covertly leave French territory and return to Damascus on 7 October 2021. His flight compromises not only the enforcement of his sentence in France, but also the procedure ongoing against him in Switzerland for war crimes, opened in response to a criminal complaint filed by TRIAL International in 2013.

Exactly 39 years ago, Syrian armed forces began besieging the city of Hama as a retaliation for an attempted uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood. In little less than a month in February 1982, the troops of Hafez al-Assad carried out a full-scale massacre that cost the lives of tens of thousands of people, most of them civilians. Rifaat al-Assad, brother of the President, who was leading the Defense Brigades, has been denying his involvment in these events ever since. The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland has been investigating Rifaat al-Assad for war crimes since December 2013, following a criminal complaint filed by TRIAL International.

A UN report made public points the finger at Switzerland. In two criminal cases for war crimes, the Office of the Attorney General is alleged to have succumbed to political pressure. This has resulted in huge delays in proceedings, to the detriment of victims supported by TRIAL International.

In this article, summarising the criticism directed at Switzerland by the United Nations special rapporteur on torture and their counterpart on the independence of judges and lawyers, the delays in the present case of Khaled Nezzar as well as the one of Rifaat Al-Assad are being questioned.

On 2 February 1982, Syrian government forces, including the Defense Brigades, attacked the city of Hama to crush opponents to the regime who had taken up arms.

For almost a month, civilians were trapped into their city, unable to get any help, food, supply, nor electricity… Civil casualties ranged from 10’000 to 40’000, depending on the sources.

Hamid Sulaiman, a Syrian artist born in Damascus, is one of the “young dreamers of the Arab spring”. He was not yet born when Hama 82 massacre took place, but it still resonates with him like “a ghost of terror”. Forced to flee Syria in 2011, he settled in Paris where he recently published his first graphic novel based on his experience.

Rifaat Al-Assad is a career military man and a Syrian politician. He is the younger brother of the former president of Syria Hafez Al-Assad, to which he has largely facilitated the ascension to power in 1970. He is the uncle of the current president Bashar Al-Assad.

A member of the highest political circles in the 1980s, he was part of the regional commandment of the Baath party and has led the “Defense Brigades” (Saraya al-difaa an al thawara), Syria’s elite commando troops, from 1971 to 1984.

Thought by many to succeed to his elder brother as president, he was then suspected of preparing a coup against the latter. He was subsequently forced into exile in 1984. Since then, he has lived in various European countries where he has invested his substantial personal fortune.

In June 2016, he was indicted in France for embezzlement of public funds and undeclared labour. Some of his assets, worth several million euros, were seized in France, in Spain and in the United Kingdom.

Revelations about TRIAL International’s investigation

A collective of lawyers has revealed today the existence of criminal proceedings in Switzerland against Rifaat Al-Assad for war crimes committed in Syria in the 1980s. TRIAL International confirms it has, after a thorough investigation, denounced the former vice-president to the Swiss judicial authorities. A solid case is now in the hands of the Office of the Attorney General (OAG), who must now bring to its close this exemplary and historical case.

Since 2013 and following a criminal complaint by TRIAL International, Rifaat Al-Assad is the subject of a criminal investigation in Switzerland for war crimes. But four years later, the NGO is worried the case is at a stalemate, despite the significant amount of evidence at hand. This morning, the complainants’ lawyers have publicly challenged the OAG and denounced a denial of justice for their clients – who are all victims of the Syrian regime’s barbarity.