Syria is gradually trying to recover after the overthrow of dictator Bashar al-Assad last December. Photo / AFP
Syria is gradually trying to recover after the overthrow of dictator Bashar al-Assad last December. Photo / AFP
A German court sentenced a Syrian doctor to life in prison yesterday for crimes against humanity and war crimes, under a legal concept that allows countries to prosecute war crimes that occur outside their territory.
According to German prosecutors, Alaa Mousa, 40, abused and killed prisoners suspected to be enemiesof then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while working as a doctor in military hospitals and prisons in the early 2010s.
During this period, Mousa was stationed for a time at military hospital Mezzeh No. 601, later made infamous when a Syrian defector helped photograph thousands of mutilated corpses in the facility bearing signs of torture.
In 2015, Mousa moved to Germany, blending with Syrian refugees fleeing to Europe, and worked as an orthopedic surgeon in the country’s short-staffed healthcare system.
He was arrested in 2020 after former victims recognised him from a documentary about Syrian officials who had escaped accountability by moving to Europe.
During the trial, which stretched on for longer than three years, more than 50 witnesses came forward.
They described how Mousa - identified in the proceedings as Alaa M. - used disinfectant alcohol to set fire to the genital areas of multiple victims, including a boy of no more than 15.
He performed surgery on one victim without anaesthesia and beat another unconscious, the court found, to demonstrate his power in front of fellow prisoners.
“Above all, the defendant enjoyed inflicting physical pain on people he considered less worthy and inferior,” presiding Judge Christoph Koller said yesterday.
Mousa was convicted of 10 crimes against humanity, two by killing and eight by torture.
During the trial, Mousa denied the allegations, claiming that he was not working at the hospital in Homs where he was accused of committing thecrimes.
Federal prosecutors sought a life sentence. The court in Frankfurt agreed, finding his guilt particularly serious and giving him little chance of early release, though the ruling is subject to appeal before Germany’s Federal Court of Justice.
A portrait of then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is pictured with its frame broken, in a Syrian regime's Political Security Branch facility on the outskirts of the central city of Hama, following the capture of the area by anti-government forces last December. Photo / AFP
Before the fall of Assad last December, “there was no hope there would ever be justice for the crimes committed by the Syrian regime in their own system, because the regime was responsible for 90% of the crimes that were committed,” said Stephen Rapp, the United States ambassador at large for war crimes issues from 2009 to 2015.
“Even though these crimes happened 1500 miles from Germany, it was possible to try them there and convict them. It’s certainly significant from that respect.”
Universal jurisdiction, which was codified in Germany domestic law in 2002, has drawn a surge of interest in recent years as countries with similar mechanisms seek to prosecute alleged war crimes committed in places such as Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Rwanda and Ukraine.
Universal jurisdiction cases are under way in Sweden, Finland, France, Norway, the Netherlands and elsewhere.
“The judgment against Alaa M. makes it clear that proceedings based on the principle of universal jurisdiction are now an integral part of case law in Germany,” Patrick Kroker, a senior legal adviser at the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, said.
Yet universal jurisdiction prosecutions are only as good as the evidence on which they rely, Rapp said.
“The efforts of Syria benefitted enormously from funding that the US government provided to civil society organisations to document these crimes on the ground,” he said. “Unfortunately, the US is no longer supporting those efforts because of all the cutbacks at the State Department.”
Kroker called the verdict “an important step in the fight against impunity”.
He added: “My hope is that such judgments will one day also serve as a basis in Syria itself to bring those primarily responsible for one of the most atrocious crimes of our time to justice”.
About universal jurisdiction
Under the legal concept of universal jurisdiction, some crimes are so egregious that normal rules on territorial jurisdiction do not apply.
Universal jurisdiction is increasingly used in cases when the country where the crime occurred is unable or unwilling to prosecute.
However, many countries with universal jurisdiction provisions, including Germany, specify that the defendant must be physically present to be tried.
