The Koblenz Higher Regional Court imposed a life sentence on the Syrian Anwar R. on Thursday and found him guilty of crimes against humanity, among other things. According to the German judges, the 58-year-old was responsible for the torture of at least 4,000 people in a prison run by the General Secret Service in the Syrian capital Damascus. Politicians and human rights organizations welcomed the verdict.
Amnesty International called the ruling an “important signal in the fight against impunity”. The general secretary of the human rights organization of the German branch, Markus N. Beeko, stated: “The court in Koblenz has clearly and formally established the inhumane conditions of detention, systematic torture, sexual violence and killings in Syria.”
The decision is not yet final
The process that began in April 2020 ended on the 108th day of the trial – but the judgment is not yet final. The trial with more than 80 witnesses and with a number of victims of torture as co-plaintiffs had attracted international attention.
The defendant had declared himself innocent. Therefore, his defense had pleaded for acquittal. The federal prosecutor had demanded life imprisonment and a determination of the particular gravity of the guilt, which would have almost ruled out a release from prison after 15 years. The court did not determine the latter.
The principle of world law enables persecution in other states
The State Security Senate in Koblenz is convinced that Anwar R. had committed the crimes against humanity in 2011 and 2012 during the initial phase of the Syrian civil war. The international law principle in international criminal law makes it possible to prosecute possible war crimes committed by foreigners in other countries in Germany.
Anwar R. was recognized by victims of torture after fleeing to Germany and arrested in Berlin in 2019. Amnesty International expressed the hope that further lawsuits will be initiated according to the principle of universal law.
The domestic political spokeswoman for the parliamentary group of the Greens, Lamya Kaddor, said Anwar R. had now been “brought to his just punishment”. Kaddor referred to further arrest warrants against high-ranking Syrian officials that are available in Germany. In her first speech as a member of the Bundestag on Wednesday, she said: “I stand here as a German and the daughter of Syrian immigrants whose parents would never have thought it possible to hear their child speak at this point.”
Human rights activists are satisfied
The human rights activist Omar al-Schughri (26), who was himself a victim of torture in Syria, told the German press agency: “The symbolic value of the verdict is proof of how trauma drives us to rebuild things from which we are never thought that they could ever be achieved. Our past is a weapon against our enemies. ” The verdict will not heal the broken heart of every mother whose son has been killed under torture, nor will it bring victims back to their families. “But it gives us hope that the regime will fall and we will be free.”
Amnesty’s Markus N. Beeko further said that the investigation and taking of evidence in the Anwar R. case is a valuable basis for the next trial under the International Criminal Code on Syria. It starts on January 19 before the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court against a Syrian doctor. He is accused of torturing people in a military hospital and a military intelligence prison in Homs, Syria, in 2011 and 2012 and causing serious physical and mental harm to them. (SDA)