Insight
Syria
The first trial worldwide on state torture in Syria started in Germany in April 2020 at the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz. The main defendant was Anwar R, a former official of President Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian General Intelligence Directorate. In January 2022, the trial ended with the convition of Anwar R to a life-long sentence for crimes against humanity. Already in February 2021, the court sentenced his colleague, Eyad A, to four years and six months in prison for aiding and abetting 30 cases of crimes against humanity.
In June 2018, it moreover became known that the Germany Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) had issued an arrest warrant against Jamil Hassan, until July 2019 head of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Service. This warrant, which can be enforced internationally, and the al-Khatib trial in Koblenz are milestones towards justice and accountability for all those affected by Assad’s torture system.
The al-Khatib trial and the arrest warrant are, among others, the result of a series of criminal complaints regarding torture in Syria, which ECCHR and more than 50 Syrian torture survivors, relatives, activists, and lawyers have filed since 2016 in Germany, Austria, Sweden and Norway.
In Syria, torture, executions and disappearances of civilians, genocides and sexualized violence are only some of the crimes committed by almost all conflict parties. There is little prospect of accountability for these crimes on an international level. The International Criminal Court is not an option as Syria is not a signatory to its statute and Russia is blocking a referral by the UN Security Council. This leaves the path through national courts: In some third party states like Germany, the principle of universal jurisdiction allows for the crimes to be addressed legally and to hold high- as well as lower ranking perpetrators accountable.
ECCHR has been working on crimes committed by all parties of the conflict since 2012 and is cooperating with a network of Syrian and international organizations, lawyers and activists.
