German court convicts former Syrian regime officer of torture in landmark trial

A German court on Wednesday convicted a former Syrian intelligence officer of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity in a landmark trial.

Eyad al-Gharib was found guilty of complicity in the torture of 30 people he took prisoner during protests against the Assad regime in 2011. He was sentenced to four and a half years in prison by a court in the west German town of Koblenz.

Gharib is the first former Syrian official to be convicted of crimes against humanity, in a ruling activists hope will set a precedent for future prosecutions.

“This is a historic decision because for the first time a verdict was issued against a criminal belonging to the Syrian regime who committed crimes within the state security system,” Anwar al-Bunni, a Syrian lawyer and activist, said in a statement.

The 44-year-old Gharib was found guilty of rounding up 30 people at anti-Assad protests and taking them to Branch 251, a notorious interrogation centre in Damascus known as “hell on earth”.

In a detailed ruling, the judge found the systemic use of torture in Syrian prisons amounted to a crime against humanity, and that Gharib, who testified the screams of prisoners could be heard in the cafeteria, knew what would happen to those he brought to Branch 251.

Witnesses told the court they were raped, hung from the ceiling for hours at a time, had their fingernails torn out and were given electric shocks at the interrogation centre.

A relatively junior officer in Syria’s General Intelligence Directorate (GID), Gharib claims he defected to an opposition group before fleeing the civil war in 2013.

He claimed asylum in Germany in 2018 but was arrested the following year after he was identified.

In sentencing Gharib, the judge took into account his cooperation in providing evidence against Anwar Raslan, an alleged more senior figure in the Syrian intelligence apparatus who was also arrested in Germany in 2019.

As the alleged former commander of Branch 251, Mr Raslan faces charges of ordering the torture of 4,000 people and causing the deaths of 58, as well as one count of rape and several of sexual assault in a separate trial. A verdict in his trial is not expected until October.

Syrians queued outside the court in Koblenz from early in the morning to be present when the verdict against Gharib was handed down.

“I woke up before my alarm at 5am, it’s an important day,” said Mukdad Wassim, a survivor of Branch 251 and witness in the case. “At this moment there are still people being beaten and suffering from violence and from torture. This is the first step to raise our voices in their names.”

“Today is a small step forward, but there are still more than 130.000 people missing,” said Sedra al-Shehabi, whose father has been missing since he was arrested in Syria in 2012.

“This man got a fair trial and will go to a jail in Germany, incomparable to the terrible conditions faced by those in Syrian jails. It’s not fair.”

The court’s decision was hailed as “historic” by Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister.

“It is the first verdict that holds those responsible for torture in Syria accountable and it at least creates a little justice,” Mr Maas tweeted. “The decision has symbolic significance for many people, not only in Syria.”