BERLIN — A group of lawyers are seeking to launch a criminal case in Germany against Syrian President Bashar Assad over alleged war crimes committed in the city of Aleppo.

The lawyers on Monday presented a criminal complaint against Assad, which they are submitting to German federal prosecutors. German law allows prosecutions under the principle of universal jurisdiction, under which countries can pursue foreigners for crimes committed abroad.

The lawyers cited Amnesty International reports and individual accounts by asylum-seekers in Germany in arguing that there is overwhelming evidence of multiple atrocities committed by Assad in Aleppo between April and November.

Attorney Mehmet Daimaguler said: "We're experiencing genocide in Aleppo in slow motion."

He cited the targeted bombing of hospitals, cluster bombs on civilians and forced expulsion. </s> A group of lawyers in Germany is planning to launch a case against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for alleged war crimes committed by his forces and foreign allies in the Syrian province of Aleppo.

The lawyers on Monday presented a criminal complaint against Assad, which they are submitting to German federal prosecutors.

German law allows international prosecutions on the principle of "universal jurisdiction", under which countries can pursue foreigners for crimes committed abroad.

Government forces target makeshift hospitals in Aleppo

The lawyers cited reports from the human rights organisation Amnesty International and individual accounts by asylum seekers in Germany in arguing there is overwhelming evidence of multiple atrocities committed by Assad's forces against civilians in Aleppo between April and November.

"We're experiencing genocide in Aleppo in slow motion," German attorney Mehmet Daimaguler said.

He cited the targeted bombing of hospitals, cluster bombs used on civilians, and forced expulsion.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad said in October the government's siege and bombings of rebel-held east Aleppo constituted "crimes of historic proportions", which have caused heavy civilian casualties amounting to war crimes.

He also said the case should be referred to the International Criminal Court.

READ MORE: Aleppo 'faces starvation' amid continued bombardment

The prosecution bid came as Syrian rebels who had controlled all of the east of the key northern city Aleppo lost a substantial portion of their territory to a major government offensive backed by Russian air strikes and foreign fighters.

Russia's Defence Ministry said on Monday that Syrian government troops captured 10 neighbourhoods and more than 3,000 buildings from rebels in Aleppo.

The ministry said in a statement that more than 100 rebels laid down their weapons and withdrew from the Syrian city's eastern suburbs. The ministry also said government forces had pushed the rebels from al-Qadisia, which it described as the "key neighbourhood of eastern Aleppo".

The government's push - backed by thousands of Shia militia fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, and under the occasional cover of the Russian air force - has laid waste to Aleppo's east.

Thousands of residents have fled to safety in government and Kurdish-controlled areas of the city. </s> GENEVA — German authorities announced the arrest on Wednesday of a former high-ranking Syrian intelligence officer and two subordinates suspected of crimes against humanity by torturing thousands of victims in detention centers run by President Bashar al-Assad’s security services.

The arrests were a result of a joint investigation by German and French prosecutors, the office of Germany’s federal prosecutor said in a statement on Wednesday. The German police had arrested two suspects, identified as Anwar R., 56, and Eyad A., 42, and placed them in pretrial detention, the statement said. Officials decline as policy to give the full names of suspects pending the outcome of legal proceedings against them.

They said the French police, “as part of a joint investigation team,” had detained a third suspect who was linked to Anwar, but gave no other details.

The man identified as Anwar R. “is the most serious regime perpetrator detained so far by some distance,” said William Wiley, a former war crimes prosecutor who leads the Center for International Justice and Accountability, a group collecting evidence of Syrian atrocities. “It’s a big day for everyone working on these issues since 2011, really big.” </s> Berlin — Germany has arrested two alleged former Syrian secret service officers accused of torture and crimes against humanity, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

The men, 56-year-old Anwar R and Eyad A, 42, were arrested on Tuesday in Berlin and Rhineland-Palatinate state. Both left Syria in 2012.

Also on Tuesday, another Syrian believed to have worked for the secret service was arrested in France in what was a “co-ordinated” operation, the federal prosecution in Karlsruhe said.

“From April 2011, the Syrian regime started to suppress with brutal force all anti-government activities of the opposition nationwide,” a prosecution statement said.

“The Syrian secret services played an essential role in this. The aim was to use the intelligence services to stop the protest movement as early as possible.”

Anwar R had allegedly led a secret service division that operated a prison in the Damascus area, and had participated in the torture and abuse of prisoners from April 2011 to September 2012.

“As head of the investigative department, Anwar R directed and commanded prison operations, including the use of systematic and brutal torture,” it said.

Eyad A, a former officer who had manned checkpoints and hunted protesters, had allegedly aided and abetted two killings and the physical abuse of some 2,000 people between July 2011 and January 2012.

In the summer of 2011, he manned a checkpoint near Damascus where around 100 people per day were arrested then jailed and tortured in the prison headed by Anwar R.

The conflict in Syria has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions since it began in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

Several other legal cases are now pending in Germany against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

In 2018, German prosecutors issued an international arrest warrant for Jamil Hassan, a top Syrian official who headed the notorious airforce intelligence directorate and is accused of overseeing the torture and murder of hundreds of detainees.

Although the alleged abuses did not happen in Germany, the case has been filed under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows any country to pursue perpetrators regardless of where the crime was committed.

The Berlin-based European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights has also joined with torture survivors to file criminal complaints against 10 high-ranking Syrian officials, accusing them of crimes against humanity and war crimes. </s> BERLIN (Reuters) - Police have arrested two Syrian citizens in Germany on suspicion of crimes against humanity, including torturing prisoners, during their work for the intelligence service in Syria, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Germany, Norway and Sweden are the only European countries whose laws allow them to prosecute and try war crimes committed outside their territory. Germany is home to more than 600,000 Syrians.

The two suspects, identified as Anwar R., aged 56, and Eyad A., 42, were arrested by federal police in Berlin and Rhineland-Palatinate state.

A spokeswoman for the GBA Federal Prosecutor’s Office said both suspects had been part of the Syrian security service center in Damascus and had left Syria in 2012.

As a high-ranking employee in the Syrian intelligence service, Anwar R. is strongly suspected of participating in crimes against humanity by torturing opposition activists between 2011 and 2012, prosecutors said in a statement.

“As head of the so-called investigative department, Anwar R. assigned and directed the operations in the prison, including the use of systematic and brutal torture,” said the statement.

The other Syrian is suspected of helping to kill two people and torturing at least 2,000 people as an intelligence worker between July 2011 and January 2012, it said. He is suspected of working in the department Anwar A. was directing.

Anwar R. has been in Germany since mid-2014 and Eyad A. since mid-2018, the prosecutor’s spokesman told Reuters, adding that both suspects had applied for asylum in Germany.

“It was a question of time that someone is identified and will be accused and later on arrested, most probably indicted and put on trial in Germany or another European country,” Wolfgang Kaleck, the head of European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) told Reuters.

Six torture survivors, some of whom live in Germany, have given testimonies against one of the two detainees, Kaleck said.

The two were arrested after French authorities detained another Syrian in France over similar accusations, said the prosecutors.

The Syrian embassy in Berlin was not available for immediate comment.

Efforts to prosecute members of President Bashar al-Assad’s government have repeatedly failed as Syria is not a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Russia and China have also vetoed attempts to give the ICC a mandate to set up a special tribunal for Syria.

“It’s a step forward but not more than that,” Kaleck said. “Let’s be clear, this is one of the most serious crimes against humanity in the last 100 years, so the arrest of those who were involved is important but should not be the end of the story.” </s> Two suspected former Syrian intelligence agents have been detained in Germany at the request of the German prosecutor’s office. According to the prosecutor, the men, aged 42 and 56 years and arrested in Berlin and Rhineland-Palatinate, are suspected of “orchestrating tortures” and crimes against humanity in Syria. Another reported member of the alleged Syrian secret service was arrested in France, according to the Paris public prosecutor's office. All three arrests were made in a joint coordinated operation.

The German authorities claim that the two men who were arrested in Germany belonged to the regional investigative department of the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate in the capital area of Damascus; however, no evidence of this has been revealed to the public.

The 56-year-old suspect, known by the name of Anwar R., was allegedly “involved in tortures and physical abuse” as a senior Syrian intelligence agent between April 2011 and September 2012. He allegedly oversaw a so-called investigation department that also had its own prison. During the interrogations there, prisoners were reportedly “tortured brutally", while Anwar R., who was allegedly in charge of the facility, is suspected of ordering the systematic “torture” its inmates.

The 42-year-old, called Eyad A., is suspected of working for a unit in the department run by Anwar R. The list of charges against him includes being an accomplice in the killing of two people, as well as torturing at least 2,000 others between July 2011 and January 2012, as he worked for the country’s intelligence service.

READ MORE: German Court Sentences Syrian to Life in Jail for War Crimes

Both suspects reportedly fled Syria and claimed asylum in Germany, but German media suggest that Anwar R. was not trying hard to conceal his past. Damascus has yet to comment on the charges brought against its nationals. Syria also denies the existence of the so-called "secret police prisons”, claims about which have been made by activists and mainstream media outlets since 2011.

Syria has been in a state of civil war since 2011, with government forces fighting against numerous opposition groups and terrorist organizations, such as Daesh*. Russia, along with Turkey and Iran, is one of the guarantor states of the Syrian ceasefire. Moscow has also been assisting Damascus by providing humanitarian aid to residents of the war-torn country.

Daesh* previously seized large swaths of land in the Middle East, primarily from Iraq and Syria, and declared a caliphate. The terror group’s activities have also been registered in other countries, such as Afghanistan and Libya. However, Daesh terrorists have been driven from the vast majority of the settlements and territories that they once occupied, including from Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.

*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries. </s> BERLIN (Reuters) - German federal prosecutors said on Wednesday two Syrian citizens were arrested in Germany for suspected crimes against humanity during their work for the intelligence service in Syria.

The prosecutors said federal police in Berlin and Rhineland-Palatinate state arrested the suspects identified as Anwar R., aged 56, and Eyad A., aged 42.

It said both suspects had left Syria in 2012. </s> Two suspected former secret service officers from the Syrian government have been arrested in Germany on allegations of carrying out or aiding torture and crimes against humanity.

The men, identified only as Anwar R, 56, and Eyad A, 42, were arrested in Berlin and in Zweibrücken, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, on Tuesday. Both men are believed to have left Syria in 2012 and to have sought asylum in Germany.

The arrests follow years of investigation assisted by the Berlin-based European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).

As part of an operation coordinated with police in France, another Syrian alleged to have worked for the secret service was arrested by Parisian prosecutors on Tuesday. His name was not revealed.

It is the first time that western criminal prosecutors have arrested alleged torturers working for Bashar al-Assad.

The federal prosecution service in Karlsruhe said in a statement: “From April 2011 at the latest, the Syrian regime began to suppress all anti-government activities of the opposition nationwide with brutal force. The Syrian secret services played a vital role in this. The goal was to use the intelligence services to stop the protest movement as early as possible.”

Anwar R is suspected of heading a secret service department that operated a prison near Damascus. He is accused of participation in the torture and abuse of prisoners between April 2011 and September 2012.

The prosecutors said: “As head of the investigative division, Anwar R directed and commanded prison operations, including the use of systematic and brutal torture.”

Eyad A is thought to be a former officer who aided and abetted the murders and physical abuse of around 2,000 people between July 2011 and January 2012.

He is alleged to have been responsible for guarding a checkpoint close to Damascus in 2011, where typically around 100 people a day were arrested before being imprisoned and tortured in Anwar R’s jail.

The arrest warrants for the pair were issued several months ago. Warrants have also been issued against at least 24 other alleged members of Assad’s government, including Jamil Hassan, the head of Syria’s notorious Air Force Intelligence Directorate.

Hassan is wanted in Germany for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, and is believed to have tortured and murdered tens of thousands of civilians. The ECCHR is assisting torture survivors to file cases against their alleged torturers.

Evidence against Hassan was gathered in interviews with other Syrians, some of whom live in Germany.

Anwar R has apparently not made a secret of his role in torture, expressing the view that his flight from Syria and his application for asylum in Germany is evidence enough that he has distanced himself from his past.

Substantial evidence against the men was gathered as a result of the exhibition of so-called Caesar photographs in the UN headquarters in New York in March 2015, which depicted the corpses of thousands of torture victims alongside personal testimonies. The photographs were taken by a former member of the Syrian military police calling himself Caesar, who fled Syria with the images in 2013.

German authorities have approached the cases under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows the prosecution of crimes in one country even if they happened elsewhere.

It was on the same basis that the US judiciary ruled last week that the Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin was deliberately targeted and murdered by Assad’s rgovernment. </s> BERLIN (Reuters) - Police have detained two Syrians in Germany and one in France on suspicion of torture and other crimes against humanity, prosecutors said on Wednesday, the first such arrests in Europe against suspected figures in Syria's feared security service.

Germany has "universal jurisdiction" laws that allow it to prosecute people for crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world. Such crimes can be prosecuted in France if the suspect is resident there or a victim is French.

"The significance of the arrests is that the trials are going to be the first time that torturers and victims are going to come face to face in a court of law," said Mazen Darwish, a Syrian lawyer.

"Survivors of the systematic torture of civilians in Assad jails are going to give evidence against their executioners, and this is a first," he said.

Federal prosecutors in Germany said that suspicions against the two who were arrested in Germany, which is home to more than 600,000 Syrians, included torturing prisoners during their work for the intelligence service.

The two suspects, identified as Anwar R., aged 56, and Eyad A., 42, were arrested by federal police in Berlin and Rhineland-Palatinate state.

As a high-ranking employee in the Syrian intelligence service, Anwar R. is strongly suspected of participating in crimes against humanity by torturing opposition activists between 2011 and 2012, prosecutors said in a statement.

"As head of the so-called investigative department, Anwar R. assigned and directed the operations in the prison, including the use of systematic and brutal torture," said the statement.

The other Syrian is suspected of helping to kill two people and torturing at least 2,000 people as an intelligence worker between July 2011 and January 2012, it said. He is suspected of working in the department Anwar A. was directing.

The suspect in France was arrested on Tuesday near Paris on suspicion of committing torture, crimes against humanity and war crimes between 2011 and 2013, Paris prosecutors said.

They added the arrest was linked to an investigation opened in 2015 when French officials received testimony from a former Syrian officer and 55,000 photos of 11,000 victims that he was able to bring with him when he fled the country in 2013.

The cases involve far more detailed allegations than the only similar case, of a Syrian army officer sentenced to eight months in prison in Sweden in 2017 over photographs showing him posing over dead bodies, rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni said.

Anwar R. has been in Germany since mid-2014 and Eyad A. since mid-2018, the prosecutor's spokesman told Reuters, adding that both suspects had applied for asylum in Germany.

"It was a question of time that someone is identified and will be accused and later on arrested, most probably indicted and put on trial in Germany or another European country," Wolfgang Kaleck, the head of European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) told Reuters.

Six torture survivors, some of whom live in Germany, have given testimony against one of the two detainees, Kaleck said.

The Syrian embassy in Berlin was not available for immediate comment.

Efforts to prosecute members of President Bashar al-Assad's government have repeatedly failed, as Syria is not a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Russia and China have also vetoed attempts to give the ICC a mandate to set up a special tribunal for Syria.

"It's a step forward but not more than that," Kaleck said. "Let's be clear, this is one of the most serious crimes against humanity in the last 100 years, so the arrest of those who were involved is important but should not be the end of the story."
A group of German lawyers files a criminal complaint in Berlin against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for alleged war crimes committed by his forces and foreign allies during the Syrian Civil War.