France begins Tuesday hearing the cases against the officials for their alleged role in the deaths of two French Syrian men, Mazzen Dabbagh and his son Patrick, who arrested in the Syrian capital, Damascus, in 2013.

Ali Mamlouk, former head of Syria’s National Security Bureau, Jamil Hassan, former director of the Air Force intelligence service, and Abdel Salam Mahmoud, former head of investigations for the service in Damascus, are subject to international arrest warrants and tried in absentia.

“For the first time, French courts will address the crimes of the Syrian authorities and will try the most senior members of the authorities to ever be prosecuted since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in March 2011,” said the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

The al-Assad government has been in conflict with armed opposition groups after it violently repressed protests calling for democratic reforms and the release of political prisoners in 2011.

More than half a million people kill in the war, which has displaced millions and ravaged Syria’s economy and infrastructure.

Trials into abuses in Syria have taken place elsewhere in Europe. In those cases, the people prosecuted held lower ranks and were present at the hearings.

Last January, a German court sentenced Anwar Raslan, a former Syrian colonel, to life in prison for crimes against humanity.

The trial in France results from a seven-year investigation carried out by a French judicial war crimes unit.

Speaking before the hearing, lawyer Clemence Bectarte, representing the Dabbagh family and the FIDH, hailed “the culmination of a long legal battle”.

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