German court to rule in case of Syrian 'torture' doctor

Alaa Mousa, 40, is accused of torturing detainees at military hospitals in Damascus and Homs on 18 occasions between 2011 and 2012, including setting fire to a teenage boy's genitals.
The accused is also alleged to have administered a lethal injection to a patient who had resisted being beaten, according to federal prosecutors.
Prosecutors have asked judges at the higher regional court in Frankfurt to hand down a life sentence in the case, which comes to a conclusion after Assad's ouster in December.
The accused denies all the charges against him.
Mousa arrived in Germany in 2015 on a visa for highly skilled workers at the same time as hundreds of thousands of Syrians were fleeing the civil war at home.
He continued to practise medicine in Germany, working as an orthopaedic doctor until he was arrested in June 2020.
A former employer told German media they knew nothing of his past in Syria's military hospitals, and that colleagues described him as someone who was "unremarkable".
Witness statements
According to prosecutors, Mousa worked at military hospitals in Homs and Damascus, where political opponents detained by the government were brought for treatment.
Instead of receiving medical assistance, the patients were tortured and "not infrequently killed", they said.
In one case, Mousa is accused of pouring flammable liquid on a prisoner's wounds before setting them on fire and kicking him in the face so hard that three of his teeth had to be replaced.
He also allegedly doused a teenage boy's genitals in alcohol before setting them alight.
Other inmates were kicked and beaten, sometimes with medical tools, according to prosecutors.
During the trial, the court heard testimony from colleagues and detainees, who said they recognised the accused, according to German weekly Der Spiegel.
One former inmate said he had been forced to carry the bodies of patients who had died after they were injected by Mousa, Der Spiegel reported.
Another witness said the military hospital where he was held in Damascus had been known as a "slaughterhouse".
At the opening of the trial in 2022, Mousa told the court he had witnessed beatings but denied striking patients himself.
The accused however said he was too afraid of the military police "in control" at the hospital to speak out.
"I felt sorry for them, but I couldn't say anything, or it would have been me instead of the patient," he said.
Germany has tried several supporters of Assad's regime under the legal principle of "universal jurisdiction", which allows for serious crimes to be prosecuted even if they were committed in a different country.
The first global trial over state-sponsored torture in Syria under the Assad government opened in Koblenz in 2020.
The accused in the trial, a former army colonel, was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in jail in 2022.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Euronews

an hour ago

• Euronews

Israel recovers bodies of three hostages in Gaza

IDF soldiers, in coordination with the General Security Service, recovered and returned to Israel the remains of three hostages: Yonatan Samerano, Ofra Keidar, and Sergeant Shai Levinson. The operation took place overnight. Following identification at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, the families were informed of the outcome. Yonatan Samerano, 21, was attending the Nova music festival in Western Negev when Hamas launched its attack on Israel. He and two friends fled to Kibbutz Be'eri, but Hamas militants had already infiltrated the area. The three were killed, and their bodies taken into the Gaza Strip. Samerano's abduction was captured on CCTV. Israeli authorities later claimed his captor was an employee of UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. Germany expressed condolences to the family of 19-year-old Shai Levinson, who held dual Israeli-German citizenship. Tank crew commander Shai Levinson, a sergeant in the IDF's 7th Armoured Division, was killed in a battle with militants on October 7. His death was officially reported in January 2024. Ofra Keidar, 71, was out for a walk early on the morning of October 7 when she too was killed by Hamas - her body was taken to Gaza. Her husband was shot by the attackers inside their home. Before she died, Ofra told her loved ones over the phone that she was being shot. Today, around 50 hostages remain in Gaza, and intelligence assessments suggest that only about 20 of them are still alive. According to Israeli authorities, approximately 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage during the Hamas attack on southern Israel. In response, Israel launched a military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. According to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-run territory, the conflict has resulted in the deaths of more than 55,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children.

France 24

4 hours ago

• France 24

Tracking down the pianos looted by the Nazis from Jewish families in France

In April 1945, having recently returned from Stalag II-B, a prisoner-of-war camp in Hammerstein, Germany, Benjamin Cohen learned that pianos stolen by the Nazis during the war had just been repatriated to France by the Allies. He immediately wrote to the office responsible for the restitution of looted property:"Having just been informed that there is now a service for the restitution of pianos looted – as well as furniture owned by Jews – during the Occupation, I have the honour of informing you that, as a Frenchman and prisoner of war, my apartment was completely emptied of its furniture on June 8, 1944. My wife, who was a piano teacher, had a piano made of a dark wood, which I believe to be mahogany, made by Pfeiffer." "I would like to add,' Cohen wrote, 'that I am awaiting the return of my wife, who was arrested on July 11, 1944. I can't imagine her coming home and not finding her piano." The looting of apartments This story is one of dozens that historian and archivist Caroline Piketty includes in her latest book, " Harmonies volées" (Stolen Harmonies), published by L'Archipel in May. While Piketty was working as a member of the Mattéoli Mission, which was set up in 1997 to study the despoliation of French Jews, she came across a file on pianos stolen by German occupying forces. "I was very surprised. I knew about the looting of apartments in broad terms, but I had no idea that the restitution service had done such a great deal of work on these instruments.' By going through the letters written in the spring of 1945 by French citizens making claims for looted property, Piketty was able to trace some of the extraordinary journeys taken by these pianos. They began being seized in the autumn of 1940 when a special commando unit, the " Sonderstab Musik", made up of eminent German musicologists, was tasked with locating instruments. From 1942 onwards, another unit responsible for plunder, "Möbel Aktion" (Furniture Action) began the systematic looting of the homes of arrested Jewish families. In France, more than 40,000 apartments were emptied of their belongings. "Rail freight cars loaded with ordinary pianos were shipped to Germany to replace instruments in homes damaged by air raids," Piketty noted. "Valuable pianos were often kept in Paris by the Germans, in hotels they occupied, while others were transported to Berlin for high-ranking Nazi dignitaries." A total of 8,000 pianos are believed to have been stolen. Some were taken from prominent personalities like former French Prime Minister Léon Blum, publisher Gaston Calmann-Lévy and equestrian Béatrice de Camondo, while others were stolen from ordinary citizens with a passion for music. A vestige of the good old days At the end of the Second World War, as the Allies advanced into German territory, some of these instruments were found. Around 2,000 of them were sent back to Paris, where they were stored in various locations, including the basement of the Palais de Tokyo and the greenhouses of the Jardin d'Acclimatation. On April 11, 1945, the leading Paris dailies published a short notice for victims of Nazi theft to come forward and reclaim their property. "It was just as the first deportees were returning,' Piketty noted, pointing out the stark contrast between deportees who were like the 'living dead' and 'the massive instruments returned to the despoiled". For many survivors of the war, these pianos were much more than just an instrument. Maurice Boumendil, an amateur musician and former prisoner of war at Stalag X-A, said in a letter that he 'had the joy of being reunited' with his wife and daughter, deported to Bergen-Belsen, adding that his piano represented "a vestige of our happier times". 'After five years of persecution, these pianos represented a poignant memory,' said Piketty. 'They revived memories of moments when people gathered around this instrument." In the basement of the Palais de Tokyo or at the Jardin d'Acclimatation, survivors of the Holocaust crowded in to try to recover their precious pianos. But the situation was chaotic as there were thousands of instruments to examine. Some people managed to get their hands on pianos that had retained a serial number or some other identifying mark. In her letter, Myriam Levi wrote that she still has the key to her piano, and that she believed she left a photograph of her husband under the key lid. But it was only when she noticed her cat's scratches carved into the back of the instrument that she recognised it at the Jardin d'Acclimatation. Overjoyed, she couldn't resist immediately playing a few notes from her favourite opera, Handel's 'Alcina'. Others managed to find a substitute keyboard. Composer Mireille Berl hunted for her ivory-lacquered Gaveau grand piano. She found one with the same number, but it was blue – no one could say if it was in fact hers. The only trace More than 1,300 instruments were returned to their owners in this way. For some families, the instruments were the only trace of a missing family member. Arrested in November 1943, Émile Weill never returned from Auschwitz. After the war, his daughter Marcelle was able to recover the family's Pleyel piano. Eighty years later, this relic has been preserved by Weill's descendants: "His granddaughter is thrilled to be able to play a few notes on her grandfather's piano. It's exceptional,' says Piketty. Other families who had relatives in the camps were not so lucky. Unclaimed pianos were sold by the state from 1948 onwards. After retiring from her job at the national archives, Piketty continued to be fascinated by the story of the stolen pianos. She still sometimes helps families file claims with the commission for the restitution of property stolen during the war (CIVS). "It's still very topical. There are still individual claims," she said. In Germany as in France, the looted pianos continue to be tracked down. Some have already told their stories, while others are waiting to return home.

LeMonde

14 hours ago

• LeMonde

Syria says al-Assad cousin involved in drug trade arrested in border ambush

Syrian authorities arrested Wassim al-Assad, a cousin of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, the interior ministry said Saturday, June 21, in one of the most high-profile arrests since the former president's ouster. Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia in December with only a handful of confidants, abandoning senior officials and security officers, some of whom have reportedly fled to neighboring countries or taken refuge in the coastal heartland of Assad's Alawite minority. An interior ministry statement said that intelligence services and other authorities managed to "lure the criminal Wassim al-Assad," carrying out a "well-planned ambush that resulted in his successful arrest." He is "considered among the most prominent drug traffickers and people involved in a number of crimes during the period of the former regime," the statement said, without elaborating on the other allegations against him. While Wassim al-Assad did not hold high office, he is the first prominent figure from the Assad family to be arrested since Islamist-led forces toppled the government on December 8, ending five decades of one-family rule. The US Treasury sanctioned him in 2023, saying he had led a paramilitary unit and was "a key figure in the regional drug trafficking network." State news agency SANA, citing an unidentified security source in Homs province, said Wassim al-Assad was arrested on the Syria-Lebanon border. In recent years, Wassim al-Assad, who called himself a "customs broker," posted images of himself on social media near luxury cars, sometimes appearing in military clothing and bearing arms or shooting, at times alongside other armed men. Since taking power, the new authorities have occasionally announced the arrest of Assad-era security and other officials. In April, Syrian authorities said security forces had arrested Sultan al-Tinawi, a former officer in the feared air force intelligence, one of the Assad family's most trusted security agencies.