In Germany, a Syrian doctor sentenced to life prison for torture under the al-Assad regime

After a river trial of more than three years in Frankfurt, Alaa Moussa, a Syrian doctor accused of having tortured opponents of the regime of Bashar al-Assad during the civil war, was sentenced to life prison by German justice, on Monday, June 16. Given the severity of the facts, his conviction was accompanied by a safety sentence for a period which will be decided after fifteen years of imprisonment.

The latter, 40, had exercised in Syria in military hospitals in Damascus and Homs. Arrived in Germany in 2015, he worked as an orthopedic surgeon until his arrest in 2020, after being recognized by Syrian refugees.

The accused refuted all the accusations, including those of having set fire to the genitals of a teenager and of having administered a lethal injection to an inmate who had resisted the blows. “He killed two people and seriously injured nine others”said, during the verdict statement, judge Christoph Koller, stressing that these acts committed in 2011 and 2012 “Incident[ai]Ent in the brutal reaction of the dictatorial and unjust d regime of[e Bachar-Al-]Assad “ to the demonstrations of opponents.

“The suffering of the victims is not forgotten”

Denouncing “A massive human rights violation” By the accused, the judge stressed that the verdict was also a way of showing that “The suffering of the victims is not forgotten”. “In addition to the difficulties inherent in a period of twelve years, the Syrian regime has tried until its fall [en décembre 2024] to exert an influence on the procedure [allemande] »»he continued, evoking threats to relatives of witnesses.

During his trial, which started on January 19, 2022, surrounded by high security measures, Alaa Moussa had been faced with more than fifty witnesses and former victims. Some had testified masked and many had reported threats and intimidation of which their respective families remained in the country had been the subject of the shadow of the Syrian secret services hovered over the hearings.

A situation that was relaxed after the fall of the dictator Bashar al-Assad, overthrown in December 2024 and now refugee in Russia. Among the witnesses, a former Lieutenant of Aleppo, today in his forties, imprisoned for having refused to shoot demonstrators in November 2011. He said he saw Alaa Moussa carrying out injections on the patients lying on the ground, who died shortly after, in the military hospital where he raged.

“No torturers, whatever the place he committed his crime, can be certain to escape justice. He will always have to expect to be punished for his actions ”sent the judge Christoph Koller during his verdict.

Multiple procedures in Europe

Germany has already continued and judged authors of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed outside its territory, in particular Syrians and the Iraqis, in the name of the legal principle of universal competence.

Two weeks ago, German justice had condemned a former leader of a Syrian militia in prison to support ex-president Bashar al-Assad, found in particular of murder, acts of torture and sequestration between 2012 and 2014.

During the first trial in the world on abuses of the Bashar al-Assad regime which was held in Germany, Anwar Raslan, a former rank of Syrian intelligence services, had been sentenced in January 2022 to life prison for the murder of 27 prisoners and torture facts on at least 4,000 others, in 2011 and 2012, in the Al-Khatib prison.

Trials on crimes committed in Syria have also taken place elsewhere in Europe, especially in France and Sweden. The civil war in Syria, launched by violently repressed peaceful protests in 2011, made more than half a million dead, moved millions of people and ravaged the economy and infrastructure of the country.