Why is France trying top Syrian former officials for alleged torture and killing of father and son?

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

PARIS (AP) — In a landmark trial, a Paris court will this week seek to determine whether top Syrian intelligence officials were responsible for the disappearance and deaths of a French-Syrian father and his son. The hearings from Tuesday are expected to air chilling allegations that President Bashar Assad’s regime 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 long-time status as a pariah that flowed from the violence unleashed on regime opponents. Human rights campaigners involved in the French case hope it will refocus attention on alleged atrocities.