Syrians Detained in Germany for Alleged Crimes Against Humanity
German police have detained four Syrian Palestinians and a Syrian national for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Syria around a decade ago. The men, identified under German privacy laws as Jihad A., Mahmoud A., Sameer S., and Wael S., are believed to be associated with the Free Palestine Movement militia. Another suspect, Mazhar J., is accused of being a Syrian intelligence officer.
Prosecutors claim these militia members assaulted civilians at checkpoints between 2012 and 2014, using fists and rifle butts. One civilian was handed over to the Syrian Military Intelligence Service for imprisonment and torture. Additionally, one of the arrested individuals is suspected of turning in three people who were later executed in a mass killing of 41 civilians in April 2013.
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The arrests were made possible by Germany’s universal jurisdiction laws, which permit the prosecution of crimes against humanity committed worldwide. This investigation was a collaborative effort with Swedish authorities, who arrested three people in Sweden for international law violations in Syria in 2012.
Anwar al-Bunni, a lawyer involved in prosecuting Syrians in Germany for war crimes, noted that the Syrian Center for Studies and Legal Research has been working on this case for three years. Al-Bunni expressed hope that the investigation would include the siege of Al Yarmouk camp, where starvation was used as a weapon against civilians.
Yarmouk, once Syria’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, became a symbol of the suffering in rebel-held areas during the Syrian government siege from 2013 to 2018, before it was retaken from members of armed Islamist groups.
