ALBAWABA - Three high-ranked Assad regime officials will begin trial in absentia before the Assize Court in Paris regarding the unlawful arrest of Patrick Dabbagh and his father back in 2013.
The three officials are Ali Mamlouk, 78, head of the Syrian secret services and security adviser to President Bashar al-Assad, Jamil Hassan, 72, head of the Syrian air force intelligence unit until 2019 and a member of Assad’s entourage, and Abdel Salam Mahmoud, in his early 60s, intelligence director at the notorious Mezzeh detention center.
They are believed to have had a hand in the detention of Patrick, who was at the time a 20-year-old student in the Mezzeh district of Damascus, and his father who was then accused of "failing to raise his son properly".
The officers told the father that they "will teach him how to educate" his son properly, without providing proper reasoning behind their detention.
Later in July 2018, Syrian authorities issued certificates stating that Patrick Dabbagh had died in January 2014, meanwhile, his father had died in November 2017, without providing further details regarding the circumstances surrounding the matter.
Clémence Bectarte, a French lawyer representing the Dabbagh family stated: "It is historic because these are the most senior officers from the Syrian regime to be put on trial,".
"It’s important not only for the Dabbagh family but for many other Syrians. There are families of people who have disappeared who are still waiting for news of their loved ones or the bodies of those who have been killed. It’s still very much a contemporary problem," Bectarte added.
