A former secret police member of Syrian President Bashar Assad was convicted on Wednesday by a German court for facilitating the torture of prisoners. The conviction marks the first time that a court outside Syria has ruled in a case alleging Syrian government officials committed crimes against humanity – and human rights activists hope the decision will set a precedent for other cases in the decade-long conflict.
Eyad Al-Gharib was convicted of an accomplice in crimes against humanity and sentenced by the Koblenz state court to 4 ½ years in prison. German prosecutors invoked the principle of universal jurisdiction for serious crimes to open the case, which involved victims and defendants who were in Germany.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the trial was a step against impunity in the conflict. His country has given refuge to hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing violence and adversity in their homeland and supported international efforts to collect processable evidence of crimes in Syria.
Russia and China used their vetoes to block attempts by the UN Security Council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court.
“That is why the cases outside Syria are great strengths, but also a clear signal to the victims … that they will receive justice,” Maas told the Associated Press.
Al-Gharib could have faced more than a decade behind bars, but the judges took into account mitigating factors, including his testimony to the German authorities investigating the charges.
The 44-year-old man 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 went on trial last year with Anwar Raslan, a former senior Syrian officer who is accused of overseeing the abuse of detainees in the same prison near Damascus.
Raslan is accused of overseeing the “systematic and brutal torture” of more than 4,000 prisoners between April 2011 and September 2012, resulting in the deaths of at least 58 people.
During his pre-trial police interrogation, al-Gharib testified against Raslan, implicating him in more than 10 prisoner deaths. A verdict in Raslan’s case is expected later this year.
Thomas Lohnes / AP
The court also analyzed 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 goes by the alias Cesar.
“Today’s verdict is the first time that a court has confirmed that the acts of the Syrian government and its collaborators are crimes against humanity,” said Patrick Kroker, a lawyer at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, who represented several survivors at the trial. .
“Testimonies from torture survivors and intelligence officers, as well as Caesar’s photos, prove the scale and systemic nature of forced disappearances, torture and sexual violence in Syria,” he said. “The relevance of this evidence goes far beyond the procedures at Koblenz.”
Giving the oral verdict, the presiding judge 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 the al-Gharib unit, which was under Raslan’s command, was involved in the persecution 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 post of sergeant major until he defected, left Syria in 2013 and went to Germany in 2018. The two men were arrested a year later.
Some human rights groups have raised questions about the trial, noting that government defectors like Al-Gharib may not realize that the statements they make during asylum applications can be used against them.
Mohammad Al-Abdallah, director of the Syrian Justice and Accountability Center based in Washington 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 putting defectors like Raslan and Al-Gharib in prison would appeal to the Assad government, “because it will prevent anyone else from defecting or joining the opposition or providing information to human rights groups.”
But Wassim Mukdad, a Syrian survivor and co-author of the Raslan trial, said that while al-Gharib was “just a little cog in the vast Syrian torture apparatus”, the verdict against him was important.
“I hope I can clarify all the crimes under the Assad regime,” he said. “Only then will the trial really be a first step on this long road to justice for me and other survivors.”
Al-Gharib’s lawyer, Hannes Linke, said the court’s verdict was “largely convincing” and that the sentence imposed on his client “would send a clear signal to perpetrators of war crimes around the world”. Linke said he would, however, appeal the verdict and ask Germany’s higher court to review the lower court’s decision to reject al-Gharib’s defense that he acted to prevent harm to himself.
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, which supports 29 survivors in the Raslan case, of which 14 are represented as co-plaintiffs in this case, is working to bring new cases against Syrian officials to trial in Germany, Austria, Sweden and Norway.