By Riham Alkousaa
BERLIN (Reuters) -A German court sentenced a Syrian man to life in prison on Tuesday for crimes against humanity and war crimes it said he had committed as a leading member of a Hezbollah-backed militia during Syria’s civil war.
The Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart found the 33-year-old man guilty of leading a militia that carried out brutal attacks on Sunni Muslim civilians in his home town of Busra al-Sham in southern Syria. It did not name the man.
In 2013 the militia beat three people with Kalashnikovs and handed them over to the military intelligence of Syria’s then-president Bashar al-Assad, which tortured them and kept them in appalling conditions, the court found.
In a 2014 raid, the group also forced a 40-year-old man and his family from their home. The man was tortured and later found on the street unable to walk due to his injuries, the court verdict said.
Hezbollah, a Lebanese Iranian-backed Shi’ite group, played a major role propping up Assad during the civil war in Syria.
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 almost one million Syrians.
In a landmark case in 2022 a German court jailed Syrian ex-intelligence officer Anwar Raslan for life for murder, rape and crimes against humanity, in the first ever conviction for state-backed torture committed during Syria’s civil war.
In January this year, a high-ranking member of the Islamic State militant group, a Syrian national identified as Ossama A., was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Germany, partly for alleged involvement in a genocide against the minority Yazidi community.
The trial of the man sentenced on Tuesday began last October and lasted for 42 court days. It included 30 witnesses, most of whom were Syrian nationals now living around the world, testifying over multiple sessions.
The court also consulted expert witnesses and reviewed extensive image and video evidence, some of which was made available after Assad’s fall from power last December, including images of detention facilities and looted homes.
The court said the verdict could be appealed.
(Reporting by Riham AlkousaaEditing by Gareth Jones)
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