A German court on Monday sentenced a Syrian doctor, who had been working in Germany, to life imprisonment after finding him guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for torturing political dissidents in Syria.
The 40-year-old, identified only as Alaa M. in accordance with German privacy laws, was found guilty of killing two people and torturing another eight during his time working in Syria as a doctor at a military hospital and detention centre in Homs in 2011 and 2012.
The court said his crimes were part of a systematic attack against people protesting against then-President Bashar al-Assad during the Arab Spring, which precipitated the country’s civil war.
Assad was toppled in December. His government denied it tortured prisoners.
Alaa M. arrived in Germany in 2015, after fleeing to Germany among a large influx of Syrian refugees, and became one of roughly 10,000 Syrian medics who helped ease acute staff shortages in the country’s healthcare system.
Life Sentence
He was arrested in June 2020, and was handed a life sentence without parole, the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt said in a statement.
The defendant had pleaded not guilty, saying he was the target of a conspiracy.
German prosecutors have used universal jurisdiction laws that allow them to seek trials for suspects in crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world.
They have targeted several former Syrian officials in similar cases in recent years.
The plaintiffs were supported by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.
ECCHR lawyer Patrick Kroker called Monday’s ruling “a further step towards a comprehensive reckoning with Assad’s crimes”.
Judges found that the Syrian doctor caused “considerable physical suffering” as a result of the torture inflicted on his victims, which included serious beatings, mistreating wounds and inflicting serious injury to the genitals of two prisoners, one of whom was a teenage boy.
Two patients died after he gave them lethal medication, the court statement said.
Monday’s ruling can be appealed.
(With inputs from Reuters)
