The message to the torturers of the Damascus regime is clear: there will be no impunity. German justice sentenced, Wednesday February 24, a former member of the Syrian intelligence services to four and a half years in prison for “Complicity in crimes against humanity” in the framework of the first trial linked to the abuses attributed to the regime of Bashar Al-Assad.
The High Regional Court of Koblenz thus convicted Eyad Al-Gharib, 44, of having participated in the arrest, in the fall of 2011, of at least thirty demonstrators near Damascus, and their transfer to the one of the countless detention centers in the Syrian torture archipelago: branch 251.
“This decision is historic because it is the first time that a verdict has been handed down against a criminal belonging to the regime, reacted the Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research, an NGO that tracks suspected Syrian war criminals. Even though it is linked to only one individual, this verdict affects the organized and systemic crime system that rules Syria through iron, fire, fear and terrorism. ”
From 2011 to 2020, more than 14,000 men, women and children died under torture in the premises of the moukhabarat, the intelligence services of the Damascus regime, according to a count by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) . Tens of thousands are still missing.
Torture and executions on an industrial scale
“It also sends a clear message to the Syrian government: those responsible will be brought to justice. This verdict comes nearly ten years after the start of the first peaceful protests in Syria – years in which the state has deployed an arsenal of cruelty against its own people ”, said Lynn Maalouf, deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, who called the trial “Historical”.
“The name of Bashar Al-Assad was mentioned at least five times during the delivery of the verdict”, noted Patrick Kroker, civil party lawyer on behalf of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).
Because if Sergeant Eyad Al-Gharib is only a small cog in a system where torture and executions are practiced on an industrial scale, a procedure against his co-accused, Anwar Raslan, is still ongoing in Koblenz. Prosecuted for the murder of 58 people and ill-treatment inflicted on 4,000 other prisoners, his profile contrasts with that of Al-Gharib. Ex-colonel of state security, he is the first senior Syrian official to appear in court for having been, until the fall of 2012, the head of investigations for Branch 251. He was responsible for coordinating arrests, investigations and interrogations. Under his orders: Eyad Al-Gharib, sentenced Wednesday.
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