German court to deliver landmark verdict on Syrian doctor accused of torture

BERLIN, June 16 (Reuters) - A German court is set to deliver a verdict on Monday in the case of a Syrian doctor accused of crimes against humanity, including the torture of detainees at military hospitals in Syria, in a landmark trial following the collapse of the Assad regime.
The trial of the 40-year-old doctor began in January 2022 at the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main, spanning over 186 sessions where the court listened to about 50 witnesses and victims, along with legal experts.
The defendant, identified as Alaa M. in accordance with German privacy laws, was accused of torturing opponents of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while serving as a physician at a military prison and hospitals in Homs and Damascus during 2011 and 2012.
In court, Alaa M. pleaded not guilty, saying he was the target of a conspiracy.
The verdict will be the first to be handed down in a case involving former Syrians accused of state-backed torture since Assad was overthrown in December 2024. Germany has prosecuted several former Syrian officials in such cases in recent years.
The Assad government denied it tortured prisoners.
Alaa M. arrived in Germany in 2015 and worked as a doctor, becoming one of roughly 10,000 Syrian medics who helped ease acute staff shortages in the country's healthcare system.
He was arrested in June 2020 and held in pre-trial detention.
Prosecutors charged Alaa M. with over a dozen counts of torture and accused him of killing a prisoner. In one instance, he allegedly performed a bone fracture correction surgery without adequate anaesthesia.
He is also accused of attempting to deprive prisoners of their reproductive capacity in two separate cases.
The plaintiffs were supported by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), which has brought similar cases to German courts in the past.
German prosecutors have used universal jurisdiction laws that allow them to seek trials for suspects in crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world.
The doctor also worked at the Mezzeh 601 military hospital in Damascus, a facility known for its role in the Syrian regime's torture apparatus.
According to Human Rights Watch, the hospital's morgues and courtyard appeared in a cache of photographs that documented widespread, state-sponsored abuse of civilians. The images were smuggled out of Syria by a former Syrian military photographer codenamed Caesar.
Syrian lawyer Anwar al-Bunni, who heads The Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research, a human rights group in Berlin that helped build the case against Alaa M., said he expected the court to respond to the prosecutor's demand for a life sentence without a possibility of parole.
"This was a doctor, not a security officer. He was expected to protect human life. Killing and torturing people was not his job, he did it voluntarily just due to his blind support for the Assad regime," al-Bunni said.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Daily Mail​

3 hours ago

• Daily Mail​

Revealed: Mystery donor who paid £1,300 fine that freed lead Madelaine McCann suspect is a former police officer investigating him - as she blames 'misunderstanding'

The mystery donor who paid the £1,300 court fine that paved the way for the lead suspect in the Madeleine McCann 's case to walk free has been identified as a former police officer. The woman, who has not been named, claims to have been wipe-tapping the jail cell of paedophile Christian Brueckner, The Sun reported. He is the main suspect in the unsolved disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine McCann, who vanished from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007. The 48-year-old is currently serving a seven-year jail sentence in Germany for the 2005 rape of an American woman, then 72, in the same Algarve resort where Maddie went missing. The woman who paid the fine is said to be a former member of the BKA, the German equivalent of the FBI. She told German newspaper Der Spiegel that she was the person responsible for settling Brueckner's oustanding balance - but claims it was based on a 'misunderstanding'. Until now the convicted rapist was only able to pay off £210 of the amount owed, meaning he was set to remain in jail until January 2026. However thanks to the former office's intervention Brueckner is now set to be released on September 17. The former police officer's actions appear to undermine her former employer, with German police still seeking to find forensic evidence to charge Christian Brueckner with Maddy's disappearance. The woman, who claims to work in 'Operative Technology Audio', says that she was previously reponsible for bugging the paedophile's jail cell. However, she reportedly thought that the outstanding fine was only due to Brueckner insulting a police officer - a charge she said 'wasn't justified'. She claims that by the time she learnt that the financial penalties related to a number of more serious infringemnts, including bodily harm, it was too late. The woman told Der Spiegel that the payment was a 'misunderstanding' and that she had attempted to reverse the payment, but to no avail. The reasons for paying the fine appear bizarre, but the former officer alleges that she has 'never had any personal contact with Christian B'. The German newspaper was, however, able to confirm that she had transferred the total sum - £1,300 - into an account belonging to the Braunschweig public prosecutor's office. The payment covered outstanding fines on Brueckner's record, including a 2016 charge for drunkenness in traffic and forgery of documents and another from 2017 for assault. Brueckner, who has been under investigation by German police in connection with Madeleine's disappearance since 2020, has vehemently denied the allegations. Last October, he was also cleared of a series of unrelated sex attacks that took place in the Algarve between 2000 and 2017. Brueckner's lawyer Philipp Marquort previously told MailOnline that he believed the sexual offender 'will leave Germany' when released, but that he would likely remain in jail until early 2026. He added: 'I haven't had a chance to speak with him yet about the searches and I am not going to comment on what has been happening in Portugal. 'What I will say is that I don't think he will be coming out in September as he doesn't have any money to pay the fines because it went on his legal fees, so I can't see him leaving prison until early next year. 'He will probably see the news on the TV in his cell and he will talk about it when he calls me next time but I still do think when he is freed he will leave Germany.' News of his the alleged anonymous donor comes just weeks after two buried guns were discovered during an intensive three-day search operation near Brueckner's former ramshackle cottage home close to where Madeleine vanished. Earlier this month, German authorities launched fresh searches through Atalaia - a stretch of scrubland littered with rubbish and graffiti-covered buildings linked by a network of dusty tracks known in Portuguese as the Fisherman's Trail. Connecting Praia da Luz with the nearby town of Lagos, the track is a popular hiking route for tourists, but for four days last week it was cordoned off for members of the BKA - Germany 's equivalent of the FBI - to conduct searches. The search marked the first in Portugal for more than two years, following a near-week-long operation involving Portugese, German and police officers at a remote dam a 40-minute drive from Praia da Luz. Brueckner has denied any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance in a series of letters but has refused to engage with police or provide them with an alibi. He has also admitted to being close to the villa where Madeleine was sleeping on the night of her disapperance.

The Sun

6 hours ago

• The Sun

Mystery female donor who paid £1,300 fine to free Madeleine McCann suspect Brueckner is former COP who investigated him

THE woman who has paid for the prime Madeleine McCann suspect's early release has been revealed as a cop who had been investigating the paedophile. The mystery donor settled a £1,300 outstanding court fine which means Christian Brueckner, 48, will walk free in less than three months, on September 17. 6 6 Reports have now identified her as a former officer with the German FBI - known as the BKA - who claims to have been involved in wire-tapping his jail cell. She confirmed to respected Hamburg-based publication Der Spiegel she paid the funds directly to the justice system - allowing the fiend out early. Convicted rapist Brueckner had only been able to pay off £210 of the total fine and faced being kept behind bars until January. That scenario would have granted cops four precious extra months to hunt down forensic evidence and finally charge him over Maddie's disappearance. As it is, the ex-cop's intervention undermined the same force she previously worked for - all as they tirelessly dug for new clues in Portugal two weeks ago. The woman - who has not been publicly named - claims she worked in the field of 'Operative Technology Audio'. She says she was involved in bugging Brueckner's prison cell - allegations that emerged in court last year as the disturbed German was cleared of fresh rape charges. The female fine-payer did confirm: 'I never had personal contact with Christian B.' And when confronted over the fine payment, the woman bizarrely told Spiegel it has been a 'misunderstanding' and she had tried in vain to reverse the payment. She reportedly believed the fine was due to Brueckner insulting a police officer, something she said "wasn't justified". When she learned that the penalties were actually to do with a number of infractions, including bodily harm, 'it was already too late,' she said. Spiegel reports it has been able to verify she transferred £1,300 to an account of the Braunschweig public prosecutor's office at the Comdirect bank. It cleared a 2016 Helmstedt District Court fine for drunkenness in traffic and forgery of documents and a 2017 Braunschweig court levy for assault. Brueckner will now walk free when his sentence for raping an American woman, 72, in Praia da Luz, in 2005, ends. He has been named publicly as the prime suspect over the May 3, 2007 disappearance of Maddie, of Rothley, Leics., since 2020 but has never been charged. He has used letters to deny the claims but has refused to answer police questions or provide an alibi. His phone was in Praia da Luz on the night Madeleine vanished and made a 30-minute call from the area. 6 6 His Jaguar was re-registered into a name the day after the disappearance. A Sun investigation this year revealed bombshell new evidence - including Brueckner's obsession with snatching and abusing small, young, blonde girls. We also placed him at key police locations of interest, including a lake where cops dug for evidence, And we showed evidence he was at the scene of an al-but-confession when he allegedly said Maddie 'did not scream,' in 2008. Our probe - aired on Channel 4 - revealed the existence of a hard-drive and laptop containing crucial picture evidence on the case. Police maintain they have physical evidence Maddie is dead - but no forensic links. German police have recently stressed the value UK authorities could provide by getting involved in the case again before Brueckner's release. He has refused to rule out leaving Germany and insisted he will go to ground on his release. If he travelled to a non-extradition country all hopes for McCann justice could disappear with him. Timeline of Maddie's disappearance May 3, 2007 Madeleine McCann disappears from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, sparking a massive police search and becoming one of the most famous missing persons cases in history. January 15, 2016 Neighbour reports a possible 'grave' at Brueckner's abandoned factory in East Germany. Cops find disturbing images on USB sticks and launch a full-scale search. February 16, 2016 Christian Brueckner is convicted for abusing a girl of five in a park after images found on his laptop. He was sentenced to 15-months behind bars but was already on the run by then. May 3, 2017 Around this time, Helge B calls an information hotline after watching a ten-year anniversary special on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. He reports an alleged confession by Christian Brueckner. September 27, 2018 On-the-run Christian Brueckner is arrested over outstanding drugs claims in Italy. He is extradited to Germany the following year. December 16, 2019 Christian Brueckner was convicted, in Germany, for the 2005 rape of an American woman in Praia da Luz, Portugal, after his DNA was matched to a hair found on her bed. He was sentenced to seven years behind bars. June 4, 2020 German prosecutors reveal to the world they have a suspect in custody under investigation for the abduction of Madeleine McCann. For the first time they claim Madeleine is dead. German media later name him as Christian B (Christian Brueckner). June 23, 2023 In his first interview, witness Helge B alleges to German newspaper Bild that Christian Brueckner all-but-confessed the Madeleine abduction to him, by allegedly saying 'she didn't scream' as they talked about the case, at a music festival, in Spain. February 16, 2024 Brueckner goes on trial accused of none-McCann allegations of rape and sex assault, in Braunschweig, Germany. Prosecutors hope for a conviction to keep him behind bars permanently and lead to McCann charges. October 8, 2024 Brueckner was acquitted of all claims. Prosecutors launch an appeal, however. Decision pending. September 17, 2025 Date on which Christian Brueckner will be released from custody without action being taken. Prosecutors require an arrest warrant for a retrial over claims from last year - or over the McCann case. June 1, 2025 Police order a renewed search for clues in Praia Da Luz on the Algarve in Portugal. It lasts for just three days. 6 6

Sky News

8 hours ago

• Sky News

Berlin school evacuated as children suffer breathing difficulties amid 'irritant gas', police say

A Berlin primary school had to be evacuated after children began suffering side effects of an "irritant gas". German police said they were called to the school at around 9am on Friday, with reports that several pupils were complaining of breathing difficulties. It reported that the gas may have been released in a hallway of Miriam Makeba Elementary School in Moabit. The city's fire department told Sky News that 37 children were affected. Of those seven required treatment, with one child taken to hospital. In total, 400 pupils were evacuated from the premises as emergency services investigated. "The building has been evacuated and ventilated," Berlin police wrote in a post on social media. "Currently there is no longer any danger."