France is trying Syrian ex-officials for the torture and killing of a father and son. Here’s why

By NICOLAS VAUX-MONTAGNY, BARBARA SURK and JOHN LEICESTER
Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — A Paris court is seeking to determine this week whether top Syrian intelligence officials were responsible for the disappearance and deaths of a French-Syrian father and his son. Hearings in the landmark trial started Tuesday and are expected to air chilling allegations that President Bashar Assad’s government has widely used torture and arbitrary detentions to keep power in Syria’s civil war, now in its 14th year. The French trial comes as Assad has been regaining an aura of international respectability, starting to shed his longtime status as a pariah that stemmed from the violence unleashed on government opponents. Human rights campaigners involved in the French case hope it will refocus attention on alleged atrocities.