Berlin: Syrian doctors living in Germany have been indicted with crimes against humanity including torture and one murder case, said the prosecutor on Wednesday, in the latest German steps on alleged violations committed in Syria.
The suspect, which was identified as Alaa M., was arrested on June 19, 2020, and was originally charged with two examples of torture of prisoners in a prison in the city of Homs in 2011.
But he has now been charged with many additional crimes, including killing one person and 18 other torture charges.
Alaa M.
worked as a doctor at a military hospital in Homs and Damascus in 2011 and 2012 when he allegedly committed a terrible violation including burning a teenage genitals.
In one case, he was accused of beating a prisoner, pouring flammable liquid on his wounds before burning them and kicking his face so hard that the three teeth had to be replaced.
In the others, he allegedly gave a deadly injection to a prisoner who tried to fight beaten.
He was also accused of talking to a prisoner who suffered from epilepsy by punching his face, hitting him with a plastic pipe and kicking his head.
The man died a few days later, shortly after taking the tablet given to him by Alaa M., even though the cause of death was unclear.
Alaa M.
left Syria in mid-2015 and moved to Germany, where he also practiced as a doctor.
Syrian civil war, which began with brutal repression of anti-government protests, has killed more than 380,000 people and moved almost half of the country’s pre-conflict population.
Germany has taken more than 700,000 Syrian refugees from the beginning of the conflict.
In February, a German court sentenced a former Syrian intelligence service agent for involvement in crimes against humanity in the first court case around the world for the state-sponsored torture by the Syrian government Bashar al-Assad.
Eyad Al-Gharib, 44, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for his role in helping to capture at least 30 protesters in the Duma in the fall of 2011 and release them to the Al-Khatib Detention Center in Damascus where they were tortured.