In a landmark case, a German court convicts an ex-Syrian officer of torture
KOBLENZ, Germany — The world's first criminal trial over torture in Syria's prisons ended Thursday with a guilty verdict and life sentence for a former Syrian intelligence officer.
The ruling came in a German case against Anwar Raslan, who was accused of more than 30 counts of murder, 4,000 counts of torture and charges of sexual assault from when he oversaw a notorious prison in Damascus in 2011 and 2012.
The landmark trial marked the first time a high-ranking former Syrian official has faced Syrians in open court in a war crimes case.
Raslan, a 58-year-old former colonel, was stoic as the five judges strode into a silent courtroom. The judges remained standing to deliver the verdict and sentence. They then read out the names of Syrian torture survivors who were in the courtroom.
Witnesses and the lawyers who worked on their behalf deemed it a rare success in prosecuting a war crimes case in which the crimes were committed under a government that remains in power — the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
"This is the first step in a very long way to achieve justice," says Wassim Mukdad, a Syrian torture survivor and co-plaintiff who now lives in Germany. "To experience the verdict against a former colonel in the intelligence forces, it's history being written in front of our eyes."
