Syrian refugees cross the border of Croatia’s Rigons in October 2015. AP material photo
A German court sentenced former intelligence officers to prison for torture and killing anti-government protesters during the Syrian Civil War. It is the first time that a judicial institution has withdrawn from crimes against humanity in the Syrian Civil War, which continues for the 11th year. It is expected that other trials will be a touchstone to hold accountability for human rights abuses by the Syrian government.
According to the BBC on the 24th (local time), a German court recently sentenced a former Syrian intelligence agent Iyad Algarib, 44, who was charged with torture, to four years and six months in prison. This is the first case of being convicted of a’crime against humanity’ committed against Syrian protesters. Crimes against humanity are cruel acts that systematically and broadly repress civilians regardless of war or peace, and are punished as felony crimes in the international community.
In Syria, a large-scale anti-government protest broke out in 2011 and spread to a civil war. In the process, the Syrian Intelligence Agency (GID) committed violent suppression of protests. German prosecutors in the city of Koblenz determined that Algarib, a GID agent, arrested at least 30 protesters and sent them to intelligence agencies, knowing that they would be tortured. His boss, Anwar Raslan, 58, is also accused of engaging in torture of at least 4,000 and killing 58. The prosecution stated in the complaint that Raslan instructed the prisoners to torture in various ways, including rape, electric shock, and whipping. The trial against Raslan is still ongoing.
The two who left Syria in 2013 lived in Germany for exile and refugee status in 2018, but were arrested by German authorities in February 2019 and put to trial. German prosecutors decided to condemn them in their own courts by applying the principle of’universal jurisdiction’ that all states can have jurisdiction for serious crimes such as genocide. Dozens of Syrian refugees in Germany also testified of the victims.
This trial is of little significance in that it reminded the world of the atrocities of the Syrian regime in Bashar Al-Sad. The BBC said, “The two were the’cogs’ that made the state’s torture machine work,” and evaluated it as “a historic milestone to judge the crimes against human rights under the Assad regime by law.”
It is possible that other countries will follow German precedent. Lin Malof, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa of the human rights group Amnesty International, told German public broadcaster Deutschebele, “We sent a clear message to the Syrian government that those responsible for cruel crimes could be brought to justice.”
In the aftermath of the civil war in Syria for 10 years, hundreds of thousands of people died and more than 10 million refugees were created. As the Assad regime’s testimony of torture to the protesters continued, the UN Security Council tried to put him in an international court, but the opposition from Russia and China was misfired.
Heo Gyeongju reporter [email protected]
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