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 in opposition to humanity, accusing him of torturing dozens of prisoners at a Damascus jail whereas ex-President Bashar al-Assad was in energy.
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 through which prisoners had been “subjected to extreme bodily abuse”.
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The abuse included electrical shocks, cable beatings, compelled stress positions and suspensions from the ceiling, in line with an announcement by the prosecutor’s workplace.
“As a results of such mistreatment and the catastrophic jail circumstances, no less than 70 prisoners died,” stated the assertion, noting the previous guard can 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 fast insurgent offensive.
The Assad regime, which was accused of mass human rights abuses, together with the torture of detainees and enforced disappearances, fell after almost 14 years of civil conflict.
Common jurisdiction
In Germany, prosecutors have used common jurisdiction legal guidelines to hunt trials for suspects in crimes in opposition to humanity dedicated anyplace on the planet.
Primarily based on these legal guidelines, a number of individuals suspected of conflict crimes through the Syrian battle have been arrested within the final few years in Germany, which is residence to about a million Syrians.
In June, a courtroom 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 had been frequently 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 crushed.
One former prisoner described the Damascus hospital the place he was held as a “slaughterhouse”.
Presiding decide, Christoph Koller, stated the decision underscored the “brutality of Assad’s dictatorial, unjust regime”.
