Tue Sep 02 20:25:24 UTC 2025: **FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**
**French Court Issues Arrest Warrants for Assad and Top Syrian Officials in Journalist Killing**
**PARIS, FRANCE -** A French court has issued arrest warrants for seven former top Syrian officials, including ex-President Bashar al-Assad, in connection with the 2012 bombing of a press center in Homs, Syria, that resulted in the deaths of American journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik. The warrants were confirmed by a judicial source and the Syrian Centre for Media and Free Expression.
The rocket attack on the “informal press center” in the Bab Amr district of Homs occurred on February 22, 2012. Besides Assad, who reportedly fled to Russia in December 2024, warrants have also been issued for his brother Maher al-Assad, then-head of the 4th Syrian armored division, intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk, and then-army chief of staff Ali Ayoub, among others.
French law allows for the prosecution of crimes against humanity within its jurisdiction. The investigation, conducted by French authorities, has concluded that the attack deliberately targeted foreign journalists in an effort to suppress media coverage of the Syrian government’s actions during the siege of Homs.
“The judicial investigation clearly established that the attack on the informal press center in Bab Amr was part of the Syrian regime’s explicit intention to target foreign journalists in order to limit media coverage of its crimes and force them to leave the city and the country,” stated Mazen Darwish, a lawyer and the general director of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression.
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) echoed these sentiments, noting that the journalists were in Homs to “document the crimes committed by Bashar al-Assad’s regime” and were victims of a “targeted bombing.”
Clemence Bectarte, a lawyer representing FIDH and the parents of Remi Ochlik, hailed the warrants as “a decisive step that paves the way for a trial in France for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Bashar al-Assad’s regime.”
In addition to Colvin and Ochlik, British photographer Paul Conroy, French reporter Edith Bouvier, and Syrian translator Wael Omar were wounded in the attack.
Marie Colvin was a renowned war correspondent known for her courageous reporting and distinctive black eye patch, a result of a previous injury sustained during the Sri Lankan civil war. Her life and career were chronicled in the Golden Globe-nominated film, “A Private War.”
Homs, located in western Syria, was a significant rebel stronghold during the Syrian war and was under siege by Assad’s government forces from 2011 to 2014.
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