Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on December 22, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
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Germany charges a former Syrian intelligence agent with crimes against humanity, including torture and murder in a Damascus prison under Assad's regime.
Dec 22 (Reuters) - German prosecutors have charged a suspected former member of Syrian intelligence with crimes against humanity and the torture and murder of dozens of prisoners held in a Damascus prison under Bashar al-Assad, a statement said on Monday.
The accused, who was arrested in May and identified only as Fahad A. under German privacy rules, was suspected of working as a guard in a prison in the Syrian capital between the end of April 2011 and mid-April 2012, it said.
"There, he participated in well over 100 interrogations during which prisoners were subjected to severe physical abuse, such as electric shocks or beatings with cables," it said.
"On the orders of his superiors, the accused also abused inmates at night, for example by hanging them from the ceiling, dousing them with cold water, or forcing them to remain in uncomfortable positions. As a result of such mistreatment and the catastrophic prison conditions, at least 70 prisoners died."
German prosecutors have used universal jurisdiction laws that allow them to seek trials for suspects in crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world.
Based on these laws, several people suspected of war crimes during the Syrian conflict have been arrested in the last few years in Germany, which is home to around one million Syrians.
(Reporting by Matthias Williams; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
A crime against humanity refers to certain acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population, including murder, extermination, enslavement, and torture.
Universal jurisdiction is a legal principle that allows national courts to prosecute individuals for serious crimes against international law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, regardless of where the crime was committed.
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain or suffering on an individual, either physically or psychologically, often to obtain information, punish, or intimidate.
A prison interrogation is a questioning process conducted by authorities to obtain information or confessions from inmates, often under strict conditions.
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