A former member of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s secret police was convicted by a German court on Wednesday for facilitating torture of prisoners. The conviction marks the first time a court outside Syria has ruled in a case accusing Syrian government officials crimes against humanity – and human rights activists hope the ruling will set a precedent for other cases in the decade-long conflict.
Eyad Al-Gharib was convicted of complicity in crimes against humanity and sentenced by the Koblenz court to 4 1/2 years in prison. German prosecutors relied on the principle of universal jurisdiction for serious crimes to bring the case involving victims and accused persons who were in Germany.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the trial was a step against impunity in the conflict. His country is home to hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing violence and hardship in their home countries and has supported international efforts to collect criminal evidence of crimes in Syria.
Russia and China have used their vetoes to block attempts by the UN Security Council to bring Syria to the International Criminal Court.
“That’s why things outside Syria are big bright spots, but also a clear signal to the victims … that they will get justice,” Maas told The Associated Press.
Al-Gharib could have spent more than a decade behind bars, but judges took mitigating factors into account, including his testimony to the German authorities investigating the charges.
The 44-year-old was accused of being part of a unit that arrested people after anti-government protests in the Syrian city of Douma and took them to a detention center known as Al Khatib, or Branch 251, where they were tortured.
Al-Gharib was tried last year with Anwar Raslan, a senior Syrian ex-official accused of overseeing the abuse of prisoners in the same prison near Damascus.
Raslan has been accused of supervising the “systematic and brutal torture” of more than 4,000 prisoners between April 2011 and September 2012, in which at least 58 people were killed.
During his preliminary police questioning, al-Gharib testified against Raslan, involved in more than 10 prisoner deaths. A ruling in Raslan’s case is expected later this year.
Thomas Lohnes / AP
The court has also taken into account photos of thousands of alleged victims of torture by the Syrian government. The images were smuggled out of Syria by a former police officer, who bears the alias Caesar.
“Today’s verdict marks the first time a court has confirmed the acts of the Syrian government and its associates are crimes against humanity,” said Patrick Kroker, a lawyer at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights who represented multiple survivors. during the process. .
“Testimonials from torture survivors and intelligence officers, as well as the Caesar photographs, prove the scale and systemic nature of enforced disappearances, torture and sexual violence in Syria,” he said. “The relevance of this evidence goes far beyond the Koblenz proceedings.”
With the oral statement, the chairman made it clear that al-Gharib’s crimes were part of the Syrian government’s systematic abuses against its own population. Syrian officials did not testify during the 60-day trial.
The court concluded that al-Gharib’s unit, which was under Raslan’s command, was involved in the pursuit and detention of at least 30 people after a demonstration in Douma, and then took them to the detention center where they were tortured.
Al-Gharib, who held the rank of Sergeant Major until his defection, left Syria in 2013 and came to Germany in 2018. Both men were arrested a year later.
Some rights groups have raised questions about the trial, noting that government defectors like Al-Gharib may not realize that statements they make during asylum applications could be used against them.
Mohammad Al-Abdallah, director of the Washington-based Syria Justice and Accountability Center and a former prisoner in Syria, said Al-Gharib was a low-ranking officer with little value in the case against him.
He suggested that it would please the Assad government to put defectors like Raslan and Al-Gharib in prison, “because this will deter anyone else from defecting or joining the opposition or disclosing information to human rights organizations. “
But Wassim Mukdad, a Syrian survivor and co-prosecutor in Raslan’s trial, said that while al-Gharib was “just a cog in the massive Syrian torture apparatus,” the verdict against him was important.
“I hope it can shed light on all the crimes committed by the Assad regime,” he said. “Only then will the trial really be the first step on this long road to justice for myself and other survivors.”
Al-Gharib’s lawyer, Hannes Linke, said the court’s verdict was “largely convincing” and that the verdict imposed on his client would “send a clear signal to war crimes perpetrators worldwide.” Linke said he would nevertheless appeal the verdict and ask Germany’s highest court to reconsider the lower tribunal’s decision to reconsider al-Gharib’s defense, which he acted to avert harm from himself.
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, which supports 29 survivors in the case against Raslan, 14 of whom are represented as co-prosecutors in that case, is working to bring further cases against Syrian officials to justice in Germany, Austria, Sweden and Norway.