The Coalition accuses the regime for war crimes and crimes against humanity
ICC Accepts Criminal Suit the Coalition Filed against Assad Regime
The Syrian Coalition’s legal committee said that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has accepted a criminal lawsuit filed by the Coalition against the Assad regime for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Head of the legal committee Haitham Maleh said that the committee submitted the criminal suit to the ICC’s registration office and the prosecutor’s office against Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher as well as over 120 high-ranking officials in Assad’s army and security apparatus on late March.
Maleh said the ICC prosecutor’s office initially accepted the suit, adding that the committee is waiting for the suit to be formally accepted so that the ICC begins to call and investigate defendants.
Accepting the suit is a very important step to bring perpetrators of crimes in Syria to justice, Maleh said. He called upon the ICC to seriously consider the suit as this will help the international community to find a just solution in Syria.
Maleh noted that the Assad regime and leaders and heads of his army and security apparatus committed the most horrible war crimes against the Syrian people which gave a free rein to terrorist groups such as the Hezbollah militia, the Iranian-backed militias, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS.
Syrian Interim Government Sends Letter to UNSG on Regime’s Systematic Bombing of Hospitals
The Ministry of Health in the Syrian Interim Government sent a letter to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres highlighting the systematic bombing of hospitals and medical facilities by the Assad regime and Russia forces. The last few days saw intensified aerial attacks on medical centers in the rebel-held areas, resulting in the death of many members of the medical staff and destruction of hospitals.
The ministry of health said that regime forces and their allies targeted no fewer than 70 medical centers in the rebel-held areas between 2011 and 2015. The attacks have killed at least 497 doctors, nurses, and paramedics. According to figures compiled by the ministry, 2016 saw a dramatic increase in such attacks which targeted at least 286 health facilities and killed around 151 medical personnel.
The Assad regime and Russian air forces have bombed 32 medical centers since the beginning of 2017. Airstrikes using vacuum bombs and cluster munitions targeted the main hospital in the town of Kafar Takharim in rural Idlib at dawn on Tuesday.
The ministry stressed that the medical facilities targeted by the attacks were all located away from rebel fighters’ military headquarters and battle frontlines, adding that they did not have any military presence. It also stressed these facilities provided medical services to all residents in the liberated areas regardless of religion, sect, or ethnicity.
US Sanctions 271 Regime Officials in Response to Chemical Attacks
The United States on Monday blacklisted 271 employees of an Assad regime agency it said was responsible for developing chemical weapons, weeks after a poison gas attack killed scores of people in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rural Idlib.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned 271 employees of Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC), an agency that Washington says develops chemical weapons for the Assad regime, the Treasury said in a statement.
The sanction orders U.S. banks to freeze the assets of the employees named, and bans American companies from conducting business with them.
Those designated were “highly educated” individuals likely to be able to travel outside of Syria and use the international financial system even if they may not have assets abroad, administration officials said during a conference call with reporters.
“These sweeping sanctions target the scientific support center for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s horrific chemical weapons attack on innocent civilian men, women, and children,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
US President Donald Trump on Monday expressed “great disappointment” at the failure of the UN Security Council to respond to Assad’s use of chemical weapons.
Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department
