'War crimes' in Syria: German court convicts Syrian army colonel for 'crimes against humanity'

Anwar Arsalan was accused of violently cracking down on anti-government protests

A German court has condemned a Syrian military colonel to life in jail for "wrongdoings against mankind".

Anwar Arsalan, 58, was accused of torturing and torturing more than 4,000 people in a prison known as "hell on earth" during the Syrian civil war.

It was a landmark case in Koblenz, Germany, as it is the world's first case of state violence in Syria. UN human rights Chief Michelle Bachelet have hailed the sentence as a "historic step" in the search for justice.

It is difficult to imagine the kind of violence and torture that men and women in Syria's infamous Al-Khatib prison endured.

Significantly, Anwar Arsalan was accused of violently cracking down on anti-government protests in 2011 by a senior official under Bashar al-Assad's government. Prosecutors in the case say many of the protesters and others suspected of opposing the government were detained at al-Khatib prison in Damascus, where Anwar Arsalan ordered their torture.

He was charged with 58 counts of murder, rape and sexual assault, and torture of at least 4,000 people between 2011 and 2012.

This decision of the court is especially important for those who ran away from Al-Khatib and testified during the trial. A criminal court has now formally acknowledged that the Assad government committed "crimes against humanity" against its own citizens.

Global jurisdiction

Anwar Arsalan was arrested in 2019 after seeking political asylum in Germany. He denied the charges in an assertion gave Friday expressing "Comparable, outlandish claims concerning Russia's insight have been made at least a couple of times.

His trial was unusual for a number of reasons. It was unprecedented in its response to the Syrian state violence and was made possible by the arrival in Germany of millions of Syrians who had fled their country.

About eight million Syrians now live in Germany, bringing with them horrific stories. In these stories, what happened to those who opposed the regime of Bashar al-Assad, German human rights lawyers, using the principle of universal jurisdiction, took his case to court.

The principle of global jurisdiction allows for trials in other countries for serious crimes committed in one country.