Germany arrests Syrian militia leader suspected of war crimes
A Syrian national has been arrested in Germany on accusations of crimes against humanity and war crimes between 2012 and 2015, prosecutors said on Thursday.
The suspect, named as Ahmad H, was detained in the German city of Bremen last week.
He is accused of being a local leader of the pro-Syrian government militiamen known as "shabiha", who were responsible for brutally cracking down on dissent following the outbreak of the civil war in 2011.
In that role, he was responsible for beating civilians, as well as two incidents between 2012 and 2015 during which he forced groups of 25 to 30 detainees to carry sandbags while under fire and being subjected to torture, with no access to food or water, according to the allegations.
The state-sponsored shabiha militiamen carried out arbitrary arrests, forced detainees to work, extorted money and tortured people, prosecutors say.
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Ahmad H was personally accused of abusing civilians, prosecutors added, including a 2013 incident in which he hit a detained man in the face and ordered fellow militia members to "brutally torment [him] for hours using plastic pipes".
In 2014, he and other shabiha men allegedly attacked a civilian at a checkpoint, grabbing his hair and slamming his head on the pavement.
"It is so important to arrest someone like Ahmad H because he has a close connection with a lot of the war crimes in Syria," Omar al-Assad, advocacy and communications manager for the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression told Middle East Eye.
"It’s important for all Syrians. Not just the victims and their families, but for all Syrians and human rights defenders," he added.
"We don’t have the ability to seek justice in Syria, so it's vital to use European courts to arrest these war criminals."
Latest Syrian to face trial in Germany
Ahmad M was ordered on Thursday to remain in custody, pending a potential indictment. It was not made clear how or when he came to Germany.
Germany welcomed hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in the years following the war, which has left over 12 million displaced according to the United Nations.
German courts have used the principle of universal jurisdiction to prosecute Syrians accused of atrocities during the war, regardless of where the crimes took place.
Last year, a senior Syrian intelligence officer was sentenced to life in prison in Germany for crimes against humanity following a landmark trial.
Anwar Raslan was commanding officer of a prison controlled by Syria's notorious Branch 251 intelligence unit. In the role he allegedly oversaw the torture of at least 4,000 people between April 2011 and September 2012.
That conviction came a year after Syrian intelligence officer Eyad al-Gharib was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison over complicity in crimes against humanity in his home country.
A Syrian doctor suspected of crimes against humanity, including torturing detainees at a military hospital, is currently on trial in Frankfurt.
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