The Fort Worth Press - Germany tries Syrian doctor for crimes against humanity

USD -
AED 3.673006
AFN 67.000311
ALL 92.449862
AMD 387.650577
ANG 1.803609
AOA 912.000072
ARS 998.1981
AUD 1.540618
AWG 1.8
AZN 1.706465
BAM 1.839835
BBD 2.020546
BDT 119.582702
BGN 1.851502
BHD 0.376887
BIF 2898
BMD 1
BND 1.337466
BOB 6.915139
BRL 5.806962
BSD 1.000762
BTN 84.395861
BWP 13.578807
BYN 3.274884
BYR 19600
BZD 2.01714
CAD 1.39948
CDF 2865.000212
CHF 0.885795
CLF 0.035513
CLP 979.90972
CNY 7.2244
CNH 7.244355
COP 4479
CRC 511.011392
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 104.849946
CZK 23.9373
DJF 177.719992
DKK 7.06055
DOP 60.375024
DZD 133.998993
EGP 49.3251
ERN 15
ETB 122.049964
EUR 0.94655
FJD 2.27125
FKP 0.786951
GBP 0.78699
GEL 2.730338
GGP 0.786951
GHS 16.093319
GIP 0.786951
GMD 71.000122
GNF 8629.999871
GTQ 7.732613
GYD 209.3638
HKD 7.781365
HNL 25.060257
HRK 7.133507
HTG 131.582908
HUF 386.059763
IDR 15845.9
ILS 3.754225
IMP 0.786951
INR 84.42365
IQD 1310.5
IRR 42092.500584
ISK 139.430268
JEP 0.786951
JMD 158.431955
JOD 0.7091
JPY 155.550045
KES 129.495865
KGS 86.200902
KHR 4049.999849
KMF 466.350132
KPW 899.999851
KRW 1402.789736
KWD 0.30764
KYD 0.833937
KZT 493.231612
LAK 21944.999787
LBP 89550.000237
LKR 292.48469
LRD 183.999896
LSL 18.249631
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.869392
MAD 9.95797
MDL 18.032417
MGA 4655.000074
MKD 58.249992
MMK 3247.960992
MNT 3397.999858
MOP 8.017648
MRU 39.875002
MUR 46.889881
MVR 15.450612
MWK 1735.999923
MXN 20.534202
MYR 4.459733
MZN 63.899729
NAD 18.250197
NGN 1677.460255
NIO 36.78002
NOK 11.139895
NPR 135.035137
NZD 1.70113
OMR 0.384979
PAB 1.000724
PEN 3.80195
PGK 3.93475
PHP 58.837965
PKR 278.049733
PLN 4.10935
PYG 7810.118723
QAR 3.64055
RON 4.7105
RSD 110.736994
RUB 98.498646
RWF 1365
SAR 3.75755
SBD 8.383555
SCR 13.638838
SDG 601.502988
SEK 10.984375
SGD 1.343089
SHP 0.786951
SLE 22.814981
SLL 20969.507172
SOS 571.500104
SRD 35.279997
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.756103
SYP 2512.530016
SZL 18.249869
THB 34.941496
TJS 10.662352
TMT 3.51
TND 3.147501
TOP 2.3421
TRY 34.35113
TTD 6.800373
TWD 32.450501
TZS 2659.999506
UAH 41.343769
UGX 3672.521001
UYU 42.190719
UZS 12825.000122
VES 44.996698
VND 25345
VUV 118.721975
WST 2.812855
XAF 617.092513
XAG 0.033008
XAU 0.000389
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.753908
XOF 616.50203
XPF 113.349685
YER 249.80406
ZAR 18.240398
ZMK 9001.201813
ZMW 27.374927
ZWL 321.999592
  • RBGPF

    -0.8500

    59.34

    -1.43%

  • CMSC

    0.0700

    24.61

    +0.28%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.24

    +0.15%

  • BCC

    1.4200

    142.55

    +1%

  • SCS

    -0.3000

    13.37

    -2.24%

  • CMSD

    -0.0200

    24.73

    -0.08%

  • RIO

    -0.5800

    60.62

    -0.96%

  • NGG

    -0.7800

    62.12

    -1.26%

  • RELX

    -0.4700

    46.12

    -1.02%

  • GSK

    -0.4100

    35.11

    -1.17%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0500

    7.11

    -0.7%

  • AZN

    0.1000

    65.29

    +0.15%

  • BCE

    -0.4800

    27.21

    -1.76%

  • VOD

    0.2800

    8.75

    +3.2%

  • BTI

    0.1800

    35.42

    +0.51%

  • BP

    0.4100

    28.57

    +1.44%

Germany tries Syrian doctor for crimes against humanity
Germany tries Syrian doctor for crimes against humanity

Germany tries Syrian doctor for crimes against humanity

German prosecutors accused a Syrian doctor Wednesday of torturing detainees and killing one of them while working in military hospitals in his war-torn homeland, on the first day of a landmark crimes against humanity trial in Frankfurt.

Text size:

The accused, 36-year-old Alaa Mousa, arrived in Germany in 2015 where he continued to practise medicine until his arrest.

The trial at Frankfurt's higher regional court is the second of its kind in Germany, and adds to other European efforts to hold loyalists of President Bashar al-Assad's regime to account for alleged war-era atrocities.

Mousa faces 18 counts of torturing detainees at military hospitals in Homs and Damascus in 2011-12, including setting fire to a teenage boy's genitals.

He also faces one count of murder, for having allegedly administered a lethal injection to a prisoner who resisted being beaten.

The accused helped to perpetrate "a systematic attack on the civilian population," said federal prosecutor Anna Zabeck as she read out the charge sheet.

He "tortured detainees by inflicting substantial bodily harm on them", she told the court.

The defendant, who wore a blue suit and an FFP2 face mask in court, kept his head down while the charges were being read out.

He has denied the allegations.

His trial comes after another German court last week sentenced a former Syrian colonel to life in jail for overseeing the murder of 27 people and the torture of 4,000 others at a Damascus detention centre a decade ago.

That verdict, hailed by victims as "historic", marked the culmination of the first trial globally over state-sponsored torture in Syria.

- Universal jurisdiction -

The proceedings in Germany are made possible by the legal principle of "universal jurisdiction" -- which allows countries to try people for crimes of exceptional gravity, including war crimes and genocide, even if they were committed in a different country.

Other cases involving the Syrian conflict have also sprung up in France, Norway, Sweden and Austria.

"Over the past decade, a large amount of evidence about atrocities in Syria has been collected, and now... those efforts are starting to bear fruit," said Balkees Jarrah of Human Rights Watch.

Mousa, a married father of two, addressed the court in fairly fluent German during the opening hearing, providing details about his education and employment history.

He said he had worked "in several military hospitals" in Syria.

He also told judges he belonged to Syria's Christian minority.

Mousa is expected to address the accusations against him in later hearings.

- 'Absolute power' -

Mousa left Syria for Germany in mid-2015, arriving not as a refugee but on a visa for skilled workers.

He worked in several places as an orthopaedic doctor, including the central spa town of Bad Wildungen, before being arrested in June 2020 after Syrian witnesses came forward.

Federal prosecutors say Mousa worked in military hospital 608 in the Syrian city of Homs and military hospital 601 in the capital Damascus, where injured detainees were brought after being arrested for opposing Assad's regime.

But instead of being treated, many were tortured "and not infrequently killed" in such hospitals, as part of Assad's brutal repression of the opposition, prosecutors allege.

In one case, Mousa is accused of having poured flammable liquid on a prisoner's wounds before setting them on fire and kicking him in the face so hard that three of his teeth had to be replaced.

Mousa is also alleged to have given a fatal injection to an inmate who was trying to fend off a beating, which prosecutors say was to demonstrate his "absolute power" over the prisoners.

- 'Sexualised violence' -

Rene Bahns, a lawyer for the civil parties in the case, representing victims' rights, told AFP the examples highlighted "the use of sexualised violence" in the Syrian torture system.

On another occasion, Mousa was called to a prison in Homs where an inmate was suffering an epileptic attack. Prosecutors say the accused punched him in the face, hit him with a plastic pipe and kicked him in the head.

The man died a few days later, shortly after taking a tablet given to him by Mousa, though the cause of death is unclear.

Other inmates were kicked and beaten, sometimes with medical tools, according to prosecutors.

The war in Syria has killed close to half a million people since it broke out in 2011.

Germany has taken in some 800,000 Syrian refugees.

C.M.Harper--TFWP