DAMASCUS, 8 May 2006 — Syria has issued a final summons for former Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam, branded a traitor by Damascus and currently living in exile in France, to appear in court.
Khaddam and 24 other family members including his wife Najat Marqabi have been called to appear in court in his hometown of Banias in northwestern Syria in June after they failed to show up to a hearing last month.
“As you didn’t attend the session on April 24, we ask you to come to the one on June 12, otherwise the judgment will be made,” said a government announcement in the Tishrin daily.
Syrian press reports said in January that Khaddam, 73, would be tried for high treason, investigated for corruption and his assets seized.
Khaddam, who oversaw Syria’s domination of neighboring Lebanon for 25 years, but quit as vice president last year and left for Paris, has denied any wrongdoing.
In addition to the civil court case, Khaddam has also been indicted on seven charges by a military court, including conspiracy and attempts to usurp power and to stir hostility against Damascus.
Khaddam, who resigned last June to become a Paris-based opposition leader, was charged with “plotting conspiracies to push a foreign country to show its hostility toward Syria,” according to the charge sheet.
