Syria denies the use of chemical weapons. (Representative)
Paris:
A French-Syrian man has been detained by French police on suspicion of supplying components to the manufacture of chemical weapons in Syria through his shipping company, sources with knowledge of the matter told AFP news agency on Sunday.
According to a source, the man, born in 1962 and living abroad, was arrested in the south of France on Saturday.
“He had returned to France with his family on vacation,” a source close to the matter told AFP.
A judicial source told AFP he has been held on suspicion of “conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity, abetment to crimes against humanity and ancillary to war crimes”.
The alleged crimes continued until March 2011, the start of the civil war in Syria and at least January 2018, possibly later, the source said.
“This person is accused of participating in the supply of means to various state structures of the Syrian regime in charge of the production of non-conventional weapons, through a company located in various locations in France and the United Arab Emirates.”
According to a legal source, this is the first time anyone suspected of supporting the Syrian army has been placed under formal investigation in France.
The war in Syria has killed nearly half a million people and caused the largest conflict-induced displacement since World War II.
Syria denies the use of chemical weapons. It insists it handed over its weapons stockpile under a 2013 deal with the United States and Russia, inspired by a suspected sarin gas attack that killed 1,400 people in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.
But Syria was stripped of its Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) voting rights in April, after an investigation blamed it on more toxic gas attacks.
It will remain suspended until it fully declares its chemical weapons and weapons-making facilities.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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