GENEVA (AP) — Swiss federal prosecutors said Tuesday they have indicted former Syrian Vice President Rifaat Assad, the uncle of the war-battered country's current president, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for allegedly ordering murder and torture more than four decades ago.
The attorney general's office said Assad, 86, is accused of directing the crimes in Syria in February 1982 while serving as commander of defense brigades that carried out an attack in the city of Hama during a conflict between the military and the Islamist opposition. Security forces killed thousands to crush a Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the city that year.
Even if convicted, Assad is unlikely to serve time in Switzerland. After he was convicted in France of illegal use of Syrian state funds and sentenced to four years in prison, his nephew, Syrian President Bashar Assad, allowed him back into Syria, ending his over 30 years of exile in France, where he lived in an opulent, marble-floored mansion near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
The case was brought by the advocacy group Trial International under the principle of “universal jurisdiction,” which allows prosecution of heinous crimes in a country that may not have been where they took place. Authorities say there is no statute of limitations for war crimes, meaning that as long has he's alive, Assad could be held accountable.
Swiss authorities determined that Assad was in Switzerland when the official probe was launched by Swiss investigators. Prosecutors will present their case to the federal criminal court in the southern city of Bellinzona, the attorney general's office said, without specifying a date.
Benoit Meystre, legal adviser for Trial International, acknowledged there's little chance that Assad will stand trial in person in Switzerland. But he said the indictment “in itself is a victory for all the victims of the (Assad) regime” that remains in power.
“This indictment, and the trial that will be held, really highlights all the crimes of the regime and the crimes that were committed in Hama in 1982," Meystre said. "That was essentially the start of the violence and repression that continued for years and up to today. So symbolically, this indictment is very strong.”
His group wants Assad to go on trial as soon as possible because of his advanced age.
Ribal Assad, a businessman and founder of the Organization for Democracy and Freedom in Syria, who is one of Rifaat Assad's 16 children, said by phone that he didn't know whether his father planned to travel to Switzerland for the trial and that he hadn't spoken with his father since before he returned to Syria.