GERMANY: Syrian doctor investigated for war crimes against dissidents of Syrian Baath Regime

KARLSRUHE, Germany – German authorities are investigating a Syrian doctor, residing in Germany since May 2015, on charges of war crimes against Syrian dissidents in the military hospital of Homs. The lawyer of the accused doctor stated that the accused denies all allegations, Der Spiegel reports, and says his client is the victim of slander by extremists. According to Der Spiegel, the doctor who now works in a spa treatment hospital in the German state of Hessen, is suspected of beating, torturing and ill-treating injured dissidents of the Syrian Baath Regime at the military hospital in Homs where he worked.

The newspaper’s report is based on the testimony of four people, including two former doctors of the military hospital in Homs. The two witness-doctors told Der Spiegel that he boasted of surgical treatments without anesthesia and that he once has poured alcohol on a dissidents’ genitals and set it on fire.

Earlier this year, the trials started against two ISIS suspects from Syria of war crimes against Yazidis. Germany has  has been collecting evidence about war crimes committed in Syria since the outbreak of the war – Germany hosts hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. The German Federal Prosecutor collects the evidence under the principle of universal jurisdiction. The 2020 German Code of Crimes against International Law allows German prosecutors to prosecute for war crimes and crimes against humanity, even if they have not been committed in Germany.