The effects of the Ghouta and Khan Sheikhoun attacks still haunt their lives
Syrians victims of chemical attacks file criminal complaints with German prosecutors
The effects of the chemical attack massacre in Khan Sheikhoun are still fresh.
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A Syrian mother searches for her children among the children who were subjected to a chemical attack in Ghouta.
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Lawyers representing victims of chemical weapons attacks in Syria said that they have filed criminal complaints with the Federal Prosecutor General in Germany against Syrian officials, accusing them of causing hundreds of civilian deaths in opposition-held areas.
Germany is home to 600,000 Syrians, and its laws allow for prosecution of crimes against humanity anywhere in the world.
This opens a rare legal arena for action against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The attempts of Western powers to open an international court for dealing with Syria were hampered by opposition from Russia and China in the UN Security Council.
The Syrian government denies that it used chemical weapons against its citizens.
A spokesperson for the German public prosecutor’s office could not be reached to confirm that complaints had been lodged.
The complaints are based on what lawyers describe as the strongest physical evidence, to date, of the use of substances such as sarin gas in Ghouta, Syria in 2013, and in Khan Sheikhoun four years later, killing at least 1,400 citizens.
They say that the evidence includes the testimonies of 17 survivors and 50 defectors who had information about the Syrian government's chemical weapons program, or plans to carry out the attacks.
"The prosecution may ultimately conclude that there is sufficient evidence to issue arrest warrants against members of the Assad regime," said Steve Costas, an Open Society Justice Initiative attorney, one of three groups behind the complaints.
"This will be a big step, in a longer process to try Syrian officials," he added.
The Syrian regime forces committed a horrific and unprecedented massacre in Eastern Ghouta in the countryside of Damascus, on August 23, 2013, using poisonous gases under the eyes of international observers, and while they were in Syria to investigate the use of chemicals, and the number of victims reached about 1,200, according to what the spokesman said. The "Free Army", most of them children and women, the hospitals could not accommodate them.
A United Nations report, issued on October 26, 2017, stated that the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was responsible for a sarin gas attack, in April, on the city of Khan Sheikhoun.
The report stated that the investigation committee "is confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin (gas) on Khan Sheikhoun, on April 4, 2017."
An American response
This attack on the city in Idlib governorate, which was controlled by the opposition factions, resulted in the deaths of 83 people, according to the United Nations, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the killing of at least 87 people, including 30 children.
In response to the news about the attack, two American warships, at that time, in the Mediterranean Sea, on the night of the sixth to the seventh of April, fired "Tomahawk" missiles at Shayrat air base in central Syria, from which - according to Washington's assurances at the time - the chemical attack on Khan was launched Sheikhoun
For its part, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced, on October 4, 2017, that the sarin gas was used in a "accident" in a village in northern Syria, in late March, five days before it was used in an attack on the city of Khan Sheikhoun, which left more than 80 people dead. .
The director of the organization, Ahmed Uzumjo, said, "The analysis of samples collected by (the international organization) is related to an incident that occurred in the northern part of Syria, on March 30, 2017," adding that "the results prove the presence of sarin."
He added, "Reports indicated that 50 people were injured, while no deaths were recorded."
Uzumjo said that sarin was used in the village of Al-Lataminah, 25 kilometers south of Khan Sheikhoun, on March 30.
He said that the organization’s investigation committee found soil samples, clothes and metal parts "that were sent to our laboratories, and we got the results a few days ago."
"It is worrying that there was a use of sarin, or it was exposed even before the April 4 incident," he added.
Confirmed chemical attack
On August 31, 2017, Doctors Without Borders announced in a statement that a bomb dropped by a helicopter exploded at the entrance to Al-Lataminah Hospital, in the northern Hama governorate, on March 25 of the same year, killing two people, one of whom was a surgeon.
The organization quoted the medical staff as saying that "chemical weapons" were used, because breathing problems usually result from such attacks, and were observed in patients and patients.
Damascus has repeatedly denied possessing or using chemical weapons, confirming that it dismantled its arsenal in 2013, according to a Russian-American agreement.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons had submitted a report, earlier this month, in which it confirmed that sarin gas was used in the attack on Khan Sheikhoun, without blaming anyone.
However, UN investigators announced that they had evidence that the Syrian regime forces were responsible for the attack, in the first UN report, which officially blames Damascus.
Sarin gas was used in the village of Al-Lataminah, 25 km south of Khan Sheikhoun, on March 30, 2017.
The complaints are based on what lawyers describe as the strongest physical evidence, to date, of the use of substances, such as sarin gas, in Ghouta, Syria, in 2013, and in Khan Sheikhoun four years later, killing at least 1,400 citizens.
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