Switzerland’s attorney general announced on Tuesday that it will indict Rifaat al-Assad, nicknamed “The Butcher of Hama” and the uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Reuters reported.

The actions attributed to him took place in 1982, when Rifaat al-Assad was the vice president of Syria and the military commander of the regime in Damascus.

Swiss prosecutors said in a press release on Tuesday that Rifaat al-Assad was accused of “ordering murders, acts of torture, ill-treatment and illegal detentions” during his tenure as a military commander in Hama, a city in western Syria.

Dubbed the “Butcher of Hama” by critics for his crackdown on an uprising in the city, he commanded troops accused of killing thousands while suppressing an Islamist uprising.

Although Reuters could not reach him for comment on the charges brought against him by Swiss prosecutors, the former Syrian official has previously denied responsibility for the killings in Hama.

Who is Rifaat al-Asad, “the renegade of Hama”

The indictment drawn up by Swiss prosecutors said fighting between the Syrian army and Islamist rebels had caused between 3,000 and 60,000 deaths in Hama, and that most of the dead were civilians.

Rifaat al-Assad, now 86, has lived in exile since the mid-1980s, fleeing Syria after being accused of trying to topple his brother, President Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father.

He returned to Syria in 2021 after escaping from a prison in France that had sentenced him to prison for embezzling Syrian public funds.

The General Prosecutor’s Office of Switzerland opened a criminal investigation for war crimes in the name of Rifaat al-Assad by virtue of the principle of universal jurisdiction over such crimes.

Swiss police found that Assad was in the country when the investigation began, and several victims of his actions in Syria filed complaints against him in Switzerland.

During his exile, Rifaat al-Assad avoided public appearances, and the last available photos of him were years ago.