Chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, met Syria's new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, on Friday, state media reported, as last month's ouster of Bashar al-Assad sparks hopes for justice.
Sharaa and Syria's foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani, met "a delegation from the International Criminal Court, headed" by Khan, state news agency SANA reported, also publishing images of the meeting.
Sharaa's Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham led the rebel alliance that toppled Assad on December 8, more than 13 years after the brutal repression of anti-government protests triggered a war that would kill more than 500,000 people.
Tens of thousands of people have been detained and tortured in the country's jails, while Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons, including banned sarin gas, against his own people.
The new authorities have pledged justice for victims of Assad-era atrocities, vowing that officials involved in torturing detainees will not be pardoned and urging countries to "hand over any of those criminals who may have fled so they can be brought to justice."
The International Criminal Court (ICC) —a war crimes court based in The Hague— had been unable to deal with Syria because Damascus never ratified the Rome Statute, the tribunal's founding treaty.
Repeated calls over the years for the situation in the war-torn country to be referred to the ICC fell on deaf ears in a deadlocked United Nations Security Council.
In 2014, Damascus allies Beijing and Moscow blocked a draft Security Council resolution on referring the issue to the court.
With AFP
Comments