Overview
- Salem Michel Al-Salem, 58, appeared by videolink at Westminster Magistrates’ Court charged with three murders as crimes against humanity, three counts of torture, and one count of conduct ancillary to murder.
- Prosecutors allege he led a Syrian Air Force Intelligence unit that suppressed protests in Jobar, Damascus, in 2011, with killings in April and July as part of a systematic attack on civilians.
- The Crown Prosecution Service says this is the first time it has brought murder-as-crimes-against-humanity charges under the International Criminal Court Act 2001, which allows certain extraterritorial prosecutions.
- Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring ruled Al-Salem could be named, noted his motor neurone disease in setting a home-based curfew and other bail conditions, and declined to take a plea at this stage.
- The Metropolitan Police War Crimes Team opened the case after a 2020 referral, arrested a suspect in Buckinghamshire in 2021, and worked with international partners and the CPS to develop the charges.