Two Syrian intelligence
officials who belonged to a not otherwise specified intelligence service of the
Damascus area have in arrested February 12 in Berlin and Zweibrücken, Germany.
The two men
are only identified with their first name as Anwar R, 56 years old, and Eyad A.,
42 years old.
The first defendant
is alleged to be a high-ranking intelligence officer and is strongly suspected of
having committed or having assisted to commit crimes against humanity and other
severe crimes. Concretely he is accused of acts of torture and acts of physical
abuse on prisoners between April 2011 and September 2012.
The second defendant
is accused of the killing of two persons and torture and physical abuse on at
least 2000 persons between July 2011 and Januar 2012.
Anwar R.,
the first defendant, was the head of an investigation service within the Syrian
intelligence regime. He supervised the procedures of investigations,
interrogations and the use of torture in a prison affiliated to the investigation
service where real or alleged opponents to the government of Bashar Al Assad
where detained.
Eyad A.,
the second defendant, is alleged of having assisted the acts of the first
defendant on the ground. He was a member of a unit that controlled persons on a
checkpoint in the surroundings of Damascus. Arrested persons would then be
transferred to the detention center of the intelligence branch headed by
defendant Anwar R.
Both defendants
left Syria in 2012.
See the
news release of the Public Prosecutor General.
As part of
a joint german-french law-enforcement operation against officials of the Assad
government a third man was arrested in Paris on February 15th.
His name is
stated as Abdulhamid A., born in 1988.
The French press
releases lack further details on the exact connection between the third defendant
and the two defendants in the german case.
