France Issues Arrest Warrant For Syria’s Assad, Who’s Believed Living In “Russia’s Beverly Hills”

France this week issued an arrest warrant for Syria’s ex-President Bashar al-Assad, who has been living in Russia under the protection of the Putin government, after he was overthrown on December 8 by invading Hayat Tahrir al-Sham forces under Jolani (and backed by external governments).

A French court additionally issued arrest warrants for seven former top Syrian officials. It charges that Assad committed war crimes as his forces allegedly bombed a press center in Homs in February 2012, which killed prominent American journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik, along with injuring others.

Her death drove US and world headlines, and came at a height of global coverage of Syria, and at a moment then President Barack Obama began to more openly call for regime change in Damascus.

Mainstream media claimed a ‘democratic uprising’ against Assad led by ‘moderate rebels’ – though many of the same outlets would years later be forced to admit that Al-Qaeda and ISIS-linked militants were at the forefront of the regime change efforts. Western and Gulf intelligence agencies were supporting and stoking jihadist factions as well.

An anti-Assad opposition outlet, Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression, apparently helped with the new legal action and warrant for Assad.

It said in a statement, “The judicial investigation clearly established that the attack on the informal press centre in Bab Amr was part of the Syrian regime’s explicit intention to target foreign journalists in order to limit media coverage of its crimes and force them to leave the city and the country.”

The death of Colvin and her colleagues occurred reportedly when a rocket hit the “informal press center” on February 22, 2012. This was alleged as a “targeted bombing” – however, some independent analysts questioned at the time what Assad would have to gain from going out of his way to deliberately kill a leading journalist who worked for London’s Sunday Times.

As for Assad, he’s believed to be residing with his family at an unknown location in Moscow. He’s not made a single statement since being ousted and sent into exile. One report says:

Six months after fleeing Syria following the fall of his regime, former President Bashar al-Assad is reportedly living in opulent exile in Moscow, sheltered from justice but under intense secrecy and likely surveillance by his Russian hosts.

According to an investigative report by France Info, Assad arrived in Russia on December 8, 2024, after being ousted by the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The report places him in the ultra-luxurious “City of Capitals” complex in Moscow’s business district, though alternative sources point to the elite Rublyovka suburb, often referred to as “Russia’s Beverly Hills.”

There’s been much reporting and speculation over how his government fell so rapidly, with one prime theory involving an Israeli-backed (or other foreign intel agency) hack of his high military’s command’s communications systems.

Certainly the US-led sanctions, combined with American troop occupation of Syria’s oil and gas fields, greatly contributed and kept the population in misery.