US EditionGermany charges suspected former Syrian intelligence agent with murder in Assad jail
The suspect faces charges for involvement in over 100 torture sessions causing at least 70 deaths, under Germany's universal jurisdiction laws.
- On Dec 22, the Federal Public Prosecutor General's office charged Fahad A, a suspected former Syrian intelligence member and ex-prison guard, with crimes against humanity over alleged torture and murder in a Damascus prison.
- Amid Syrians' calls for accountability, authorities invoked universal jurisdiction laws to seek trials for crimes against humanity committed under the Assad regime, which fell after nearly 14 years of civil war.
- Evidence filed by prosecutors details Fahad A's involvement in more than 100 interrogations where prisoners detained in the Damascus facility endured electric shocks, cable beatings, suspensions, forced stress positions, and at least 70 prisoners died.
- The official was arrested on May 27, formally indicted on December 10 and is being held in pre-trial detention, following German courts sentencing a Syrian doctor to life for torture.
- Amid wider prosecutions, Germany, host to around one million Syrians, has arrested several suspects of war crimes, with earlier trials revealing witnesses called a detention facility a 'slaughterhouse'.
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According to the investigators, the accused worked as a prison guard in the Syrian capital Damascus from April 2011 to April 2012, in a prison run by the secret service. He is said to have been involved in more than 100 interrogations where prisoners were physically severely abused.
German prosecutors have charged a suspected former member of Syrian intelligence with crimes against humanity and the torture and murder of dozens of prisoners held in a Damascus prison under Bashar al-Assad, a statement said on Monday.
It is about murder, torture, crimes against humanity: Fahad A. is said to have severely abused prisoners in Syria during more than a hundred interrogations. Now the past could catch up with him.
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