The Syrian state torture also ended with the fall of the Assad regime. Now the focus is on law enforcement. However, a conference on the topic in Damascus planned for today was canceled at short notice.
Amjad scans documents. The latest technology is in his office in Damascus. He photographs files that are too crumpled or half torn. They are important evidence of the atrocities in Syrian prisons. Actions that took place under ex-President Bashar al-Assad.
“This way we can understand how and where the victims of forced detection have disappeared. Then we check who was responsible for signing the executions,” explains Amjad.
The 35-year-old has returned to his hometown Damascus after the fall of the Assad regime. He actually lives in Berlin, working there for the Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Legal Research. It is a non -governmental organization that has been committed to a Syrian constitutional state from Berlin for more than ten years.
Human rights lawyer Anwar Albuni assumes that around 200,000 people have come to death under the Assad regime by torture or execution.
NGO conductor: 200,000 fatalities, 16,000 perpetrators
The NGO was founded by the Syrian human rights lawyer Anwar Albuni. For him, the law enforcement of the atrocities is central. There are around 200,000 victims who were tortured or executed to death. Actions that have committed around 16,000 perpetrators, says Albuni.
He himself sat in a Syrian prison as a political prisoner until 2011, later he fled to Germany. His greatest success in recent years: he supported the world's first penal judgments worldwide.
They were spoken in Koblenz. In 2021 and 2022, the local court sentenced two Syrian secret service employees for their actions as part of the state torture for several years. According to the world law principle, German courts can negotiate human rights violations. Even when the deeds of Syrians, on Syrian soil and on Syrians were committed.
Further criminal proceedings are also possible in Germany
Today the Koblenz judgments are considered a blueprint. The court's evidence was extensive and detailed. The German judiciary can use this in future procedures. It is likely that there will be further criminal proceedings in Germany.
The responsible federal prosecutor has been running a so -called structure investigation for years. She cooperates closely with the judiciary of partner states such as Sweden or France, as well as the United Nations. It is quite possible that the German investigators will encounter other Syrian suspects who now live in Germany.
“The Federal Prosecutor's office continuously has the situation in Syria in view,” assured Attorney General Jens Rommel at the end of January. However, there is no agreement on legal assistance, so that investigators from the Federal Criminal Police Office could not investigate themselves in Syria. His authority is therefore dependent on internationally accessible evidence.
It is evidence that have been recorded by the United Nations for several years. She records his own institution, the so -called “International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism” (IIIM) of the United Nations.
Criminal proceedings benefit from this. With the new rulers in Syria, people have been in contact since the takeover, IIIM head Robert Petit told the ARD legal editorial team. However, there is no formal agreement yet.
Syrian NGO ensures thousands Evidence documents
The Syrian Amjad could have already had such evidence in his hands while scanning in Damascus. He scans the documents with colleagues from the German-Syrian NGO in the Ministry of Justice. They cooperate with the new rulers.
The task is gigantic: you have to scan around 150,000 file folders. After more than a month, they only made almost 300 folders.
New rulers invite you to conference for Law enforcement
Albuni hopes that it will be possible to build an independent judiciary in Syria. This should condemn the torture servants and other participants – according to the rule of law. “With the support of international judges,” he describes his idea.
For today, he had invited to a conference with various organizations together with the Syrian Ministry of Justice. International investigators should be activated for the non-public event. The topic: the prosecution of the torture. But the conference in a hotel in Damascus was after ARD-Informations prevented the Foreign Ministry at short notice.
Experts are indisputable that the new Syrian state should play an important role in persecution. The international criminal justice is even dependent on it. The International Criminal Court in the Haag cannot currently work at the moment because it is not responsible. Syria does not recognize him. It is rather questionable whether the new rulers do this.
