Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa on a visit to France on Wednesday met a whistleblower known as "Caesar" who smuggled out tens of thousands of pictures depicting the tortured corpses of detainees under ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa and Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani "met with Farid al-Madhan, known as 'Caesar', on the sidelines of their visit" to Paris, the Syrian presidency said in a statement, posting images of the meeting.
Syrian state media earlier reported that Sharaa had arrived in Paris, where he is due to meet French leader Emmanuel Macron, on his first visit to Europe since overthrowing Assad in December.
Madhan revealed his identity in February during an interview with Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera after being known for years only as a Syrian military photographer under the pseudonym Caesar.
He fled Syria in 2013 with some 55,000 graphic images taken after Syria's war erupted two years earlier with the brutal repression of anti-government protests, smuggled in a flash drive.
The photos, authenticated by experts, show corpses tortured and starved to death in Syrian prisons.
He testified to a US Congress committee and his photographs inspired a 2020 US law which imposed economic sanctions on Syria and judicial proceedings in Europe against Assad's entourage.
Germany, the Netherlands and France have since 2022 convicted several top officials from the Syrian intelligence service and militias.
After war erupted, Madhan told Al Jazeera he was tasked with "taking pictures of victims of detention".
He had said that these included "old men, women and children, who were detained at security checkpoints in Damascus, and from protest squares that called for freedom and dignity".
He said he postponed his defection from the government forces and fleeing the country in order to be able to "collect the largest number of pictures documenting and incriminating the Syrian regime apparatuses of committing crimes against humanity".
In March, Sharaa signed into force a constitutional declaration for a five-year transitional period during which a "transitional justice commission" would be formed to "determine the means for accountability, establish the facts, and provide justice to victims and survivors" of the former government's misdeeds.
In Paris, Sharaa will discuss post-war reconstruction and economic cooperation during his meeting with Macron, a Syrian government official has said.
Syria's new authorities are seeking the full lifting of Assad-era sanctions but are under increasing pressure from Europe to show their commitment to protecting minority rights.
