Prosecutors accuse the official, named as Fahad A, of torturing dozens of prisoners in jail run by Syrian intelligence.
Revealed On 22 Dec 2025
German prosecutors have charged a former Syrian safety official with crimes towards humanity, accusing him of torturing dozens of prisoners at a Damascus jail whereas ex-President Bashar al-Assad was in power.
Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor Common’s workplace introduced the indictment on Monday, alleging the ex-prison guard, named solely as Fahad A, took half in additional than 100 interrogations between 2011 and 2012 during which prisoners have been “subjected to extreme bodily abuse”.
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The abuse included electrical shocks, cable beatings, pressured stress positions and suspensions from the ceiling, in response to an announcement by the prosecutor’s workplace.
“As a results of such mistreatment and the catastrophic jail situations, a minimum of 70 prisoners died,” stated the assertion, noting the previous guard can also be charged with homicide.
The official was arrested on Could 27 and formally indicted on December 10.
He’s being held in pre-trial detention, the German prosecutor’s workplace added.
Syrians have demanded justice for crimes dedicated beneath the decades-long rule of al-Assad, who was faraway from energy in December 2024 after a speedy insurgent offensive.
The Assad regime, which was accused of mass human rights abuses, together with the torture of detainees and enforced disappearances, fell after practically 14 years of civil warfare.
Common jurisdiction
In Germany, prosecutors have used common jurisdiction legal guidelines to hunt trials for suspects in crimes towards humanity dedicated wherever on the earth.
Primarily based on these legal guidelines, a number of individuals suspected of warfare crimes in the course of the Syrian battle have been arrested within the final few years in Germany, which is house to about a million Syrians.
In June, a court docket in Frankfurt handed a life sentence to a Syrian physician convicted of finishing up acts of torture as a part of al-Assad’s crackdown on dissent.
The physician, Alaa Mousa, was accused of torturing sufferers at army hospitals in Damascus and Homs, the place political prisoners have been usually introduced for supposed remedy.
Witnesses described Mousa pouring flammable liquid on a prisoner’s wounds earlier than setting them alight and kicking the person within the face, shattering his tooth. In one other incident, the physician was accused of injecting a detainee with a deadly substance for refusing to be overwhelmed.
One former prisoner described the Damascus hospital the place he was held as a “slaughterhouse”.
Presiding choose, Christoph Koller, stated the decision underscored the “brutality of Assad’s dictatorial, unjust regime”.
