AN SYRIAN OFFICER HAS BEEN SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON IN GERMANY

By Hasse-Nima Golkar

AN SYRIAN OFFICER HAS BEEN SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON IN GERMANY

A former Syrian officer “Anwar Raslan” is sentenced to life in prison for “Crimes against humanity,” a court in Koblenz, Germany, announced. The trial is the first in the world to involve torture under the auspices of the Bashar al- Assad regime and is based on the “Principle of Universal Jurisdiction,” which enables prosecution for crimes committed in other countries as well.

The 58-year-old ex-colonel is accused of overseeing the murders of 58 people and 4,000 cases of torture in the notorious al-Khatib Prison in Damascus in 2011 and 2012. He deserted in 2012 and then sought refuge in Germany. The man is said to have worked for the Syrian security service for 18 years.

Similar legal proceedings in Sweden have been ongoing since August 10 2021, and are expected to end in April 2022. This applies to the 61-year-old Iranian prosecutor’s assistant by the name of Hamid Noury (Abbasi) in the Gohardasht Prison (“Rajaei Shahr”) located in western Tehran. On November 9, 2019, he was arrested at Stockholm International Airport, accused of aiding and abetting the torture and executions of at least 5,000 political prisoners during the summer of 1988.