3 days ago
Syrian pro-Assad fighter jailed for life in Germany for crimes against humanity
A German court on Tuesday convicted a Syrian man of crimes against humanity and jailed him for life over offences committed during his time fighting for former President Bashar al-Assad.
The court in the city of Stuttgart found the former militiaman, previously named as Ammar A, guilty of crimes including murder and torture after a trial which involved testimony from 30 witnesses.
Shortly after the outbreak of anti-Assad protests in early 2011, the man joined a pro-government Shia militia in the southern town of Bosra al-Sham.
The court said that the group was supported by the Lebanese Shia Hezbollah group, which intervened in Syria's conflict in support of Assad's government.
He proceeded to take part in, and in some cases direct, several crimes against the local Sunni population with the aim of "terrorising" them and driving them from the town, the court found.
In August 2012, an unarmed 21-year-old student was shot dead and had his house plundered during a raid by the militia. The victim's mother and brother were among the witnesses for the prosecution.
In another incident in 2013 the armed group arrested three men and beat them continuously with Kalashnikovs while taking them to a military intelligence detention facility, where they were tortured.
The court heard from witnesses -- most of them originally from Syria -- who travelled from across Germany and from Brazil, Belgium and the Netherlands to testify.
Assad was overthrown in December 2024, allowing witnesses to provide the court with images of the detention facilities they were held in and the damage that the militia caused to their houses.
Local media reported that at the beginning of the trial in October one of the victims present in the courtroom broke down as details of the crimes were read out.
German authorities have pursued several suspects for crimes committed in Syria's civil war under the principle of universal jurisdiction, even after Assad's ousting.
The man convicted on Tuesday was arrested in December 2023 in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, of which Stuttgart is the capital.
In 2022, former Syrian colonel Anwar Raslan was found guilty of overseeing the murders of 27 people and the torture of 4,000 others at the notorious Al-Khatib jail in 2011 and 2012.
That was the first international trial over state-sponsored torture in Syrian prisons and was hailed as "historic" by human rights activists.
France and Sweden.
