Germany warns: If Assad's henchmen try to flee the country, they will be hunted down
On Sunday, December 15, German government ministers announced that all supporters of the Assad regime who fled to Germany would be brought to justice in the country.
In an interview with the weekly Bild am Sonntag, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stated that Germany would “hold all the regime's henchmen to account for their terrible crimes with the full rigor of the law”.
For the same newspaper, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser declared that “if henchmen of the Assad terror regime try to flee to Germany, they should know that hardly any other state prosecutes their crimes as harshly as Germany”. He added: “Anyone who has participated in atrocities is not immune from prosecution here”.
As Le Monde points out, Germany has already tried several Assad government officials under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows trials to be held wherever the offences were committed.
(MH with Manon Pierre - Source : Le Monde - Illustration : Unsplash)