A court in Germany sentenced a former intelligence officer in Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad’s security forces to life in prison on Thursday for crimes against humanity.
Anwar Raslan was found guilty of 58 murders in a prison in Damascus, the country’s capital, where prosecutors say at least 4,000 activists opposing the regime were tortured in 2011 and 2012.
Raslan is the highest-ranking Syrian official to be held accountable so far for the abuses committed during Syria’s ten-year civil war. Before him, in February 2021, another former member of the intelligence service, Eyad al-Gharib, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for his participation in crimes such as torture and deprivation of liberty.
The war in Syria, which began in 2011 as a democratic revolution, with throngs of men, women and children confident they would overthrow the dictator and refound the country, has spiraled into an unresolved conflict, with Russia and Iran with Assad and Turkey, USA. and Gulf countries with fragmented opposition.
In addition to the hundreds of thousands killed over the decade of conflict, tens of thousands of Syrians remain unaccounted for, while tens of thousands more were detained and killed, tortured or raped while in prison, according to United Nations (UN) reports.
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