German court sentences Syrian doctor to life in prison for torture and war crimes in his homeland

BERLIN (AP) – A German court sentenced a Syrian doctor to life imprisonment for torture and war crimes in his Syrian homeland on Monday for killing two people and torturing nine in Syria between 2011 and 2012.

The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court also established the particular gravity of the guilt, which in practice virtually rules out early release after 15 years – as is often the case in Germany when people are sentenced to life imprisonment. The 40-year-old Syrian, who was identified as Alaa M. in line with German privacy rules, was placed in preventive detention, German news agency dpa reported.

In his verdict, presiding judge Christoph Koller described the actions of the accused in the military hospital in the Syrian city of Homs in the early stages of the civil war that began in 2011. He said the doctor had sadistic tendencies and acted them out during the torture.

“Above all, the accused enjoyed harming people that seemed inferior and low-value to him,” Koller said, according to dpa.

During the trial, which lasted almost three and a half years, victims had described the most severe abuse, including beatings, kicks and the setting of wounds and body parts on fire, dpa reported.

Koller emphasized that without the willingness and courage of witnesses to share the details of their suffering the facts of the case could not have been clarified.

M. had lived in Germany for ten years and had worked as an orthopedic surgeon in several clinics, most recently in Bad Wildungen in northern Hesse. In summer 2020, he was arrested after some of his victims had recognized him from a TV documentary about Homs, dpa reported.

The doctor supposedly tortured prisoners who were considered part of the opposition to former Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. The trial against him began in January 2022.

Alaa M. described himself as not guilty during the trial, alleging that he was the victim of a conspiracy, dpa wrote. The verdict is not yet final.