War crimes perpetrated by the Syrian government or rebel groups include extermination, murder, rape or other forms of sexual violence, torture and imprisonment.
[recorded 1] "[A]ccountability for serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights is central to achieving and maintaining durable peace in Syria", stated UN Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo.
Armed forces of both sides of the conflict blocked access of humanitarian convoys, confiscated food, cut off water supplies and targeted farmers working their fields.
The report pointed to four places besieged by the government forces: Muadamiyah, Daraya, Yarmouk camp and Old City of Homs, as well as two areas under siege of rebel groups: Aleppo and Hama.
[8][9] In Yarmouk Camp 20,000 residents are facing death by starvation due to blockade by the Syrian government forces and fighting between the army and Jabhat al-Nusra, which prevents food distribution by UNRWA.
[19]: 8–10 Since Hafez al-Assad's rule, individuals from the Alawite minority have controlled (although they not always formally headed) these four agencies, as well as several elite military units,[20]: 72–3 and comprise the bulk of them.
Richard Haass has argued that one way to encourage top-level defections is to "threaten war-crimes indictments by a certain date, say, August 15, for any senior official who remains a part of the government and is associated with its campaign against the Syrian people.
"[23] Nevertheless, it remains unlikely in the short term, and some would argue this is a blessing in disguise, since this precludes the ICC's involvement while the conflict is still raging, a development that would arguably only increase the Assad government's violent obstinacy.
What the United States can usefully do is manage this militarization by working with other governments, especially Syria's neighbors in the region, to try to shape the activities of armed elements on the ground in a manner that will most effectively increase pressure on the regime".
][citation needed] United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and others called for Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court.[when?]
[28] On 17 January 2025, following the fall of the Assad regime, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan visited Damascus on an invitation from the Syrian transitional government.
"[30] In 2023, Canada and Netherlands jointly filed a lawsuit against the Assad government at the International Court of Justice (ICJ); charging Bashar with ordering torture, mass rapes and other de-humanising tactics on hundreds of thousands of detainees in Syrian prison networks, including women and children.
[31][32][33] In a separate statement, Dutch Foreign Ministry accused Bashar al-Assad of perpetrating indiscriminate violence, war crimes and inhumane tactics against the Syrian people "on a grand scale".
[34] This was after repeated Russian vetoes in the UN Security Council that blocked efforts by human rights activists to prosecute Bashar al-Assad over war crimes in the International Criminal Court.
[35] The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) is using both its own employees and other volunteers (Syrian lawyers working in EU member states) to gather evidence and establish cases.
[36] In January 2024, a Brussels court indicted Hossin A, former leader of a Ba'athist militia based in Salamiyah that perpetrated acts of torture, extrajudicial killings of numerous Syrians, and violent repression of protests on behalf of the government of Syria.
[39] In April 2023, a French court declared the establishment of a tribunal to indict the officers of the Assad government charged with "complicity in crimes against humanity", torture and various war-crimes.
[49][50] In May 2024, France conducted a trial in absentia for three Syrian Ba'athist officials accused of war crimes: Jamil Hassan, Ali Mamlouk, and Abdel Salam Mahmoud.
The judges of the French tribunal stated that two Franco-Syrian citizens were tortured to death alongside thousands of civilians held as captives in the detention centres of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Directorate.
[50] Germany has legally enacted universal jurisdiction (used on pirates and slave traders) to allow prosecutions for war crimes committed anywhere, against any people of any citizenship.
[3] German prosecutors charged two Syrians, Kamel T. and Azad R. in 2016[54] and Basel A. and Majed A. in 2018,[55] for joining Salafist militant group such as Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra.
[56] In late October 2019, two Syrians suspected of having been secret service officers, Anwar Raslan and Eyad al-Gharib, were arrested in Germany and charged with crimes against humanity.
[65] In January 2022, the German state court in Koblenz declared Anwar Raslan, a former colonel who worked under the Syrian Mukhabarat's infamous Branch 251 unit, guilty of "murder, torture, aggravated deprivation of liberty, rape and sexual assault", sentencing him to "life imprisonment".
[72] In January 2024, a district court in The Hague convicted a former member of the pro-Ba'athist "Liwa al-Quds" militia, who was charged with conducting abductions, "complicity in torture", "inhumane treatment" and "membership in a criminal organisation".
[75] Abdullah had reportedly moved to Sweden three years previously, and was identified by other Syrian refugees after posting an image on Facebook showing him with his boot on a corpse, smiling.
On 6 December 2024 a federal court issued arrest warrants for Jamil Hassan and Abdul Mahmoud on charges of conspiracy to commit war crimes against US citizens held at Mezzeh prison.