A Paris court has punished three highly ranked Syrians of life imprisonment on Friday in relation to a landmark case against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the first such case in Europe.

The trial focused on the officials’ role in the alleged 2013 arrest in Damascus of Mazen Dabbagh, a Franco-Syrian father, and his son Patrick, and their subsequent torture and killing. The four-day trial featured harrowing testimonies from survivors and searing accounts from Mazen’s brother. As France and Syria do not have any extradition treaty it has made the outcome largely symbolic.