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A Syrian was indicted on Friday in Paris for "complicity in crimes against humanity." He was arrested Tuesday as part of a coordinated operation with Germany. Two other Syrians have been arrested across the Rhine. They are suspected of having participated in the tortures committed by the intelligence services of Bashar al-Assad. Three arrests unprecedented since the beginning of the war, and the result of a long Franco-German investigation.
It all starts with 55,000 snapshots of bodies of prisoners who died of hunger, illness or torture in Syria between 2011 and 2013. He is a former photographer of the Syrian police, exfiltrated by France, who brings them in his suitcase.
In January 2018, a specialist branch of the Paris Public Prosecutor's Office is in charge of the investigation, conducted in front of Germany. A report from the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra), allows then to identify a first suspect, ex-member of the Syrian intelligence services. It is this man who was indicted on Friday.
In Germany, the testimonies of 24 Syrian survivors of the prisons of Bashar al-Assad help to confuse a second suspect, arrested Tuesday in Berlin. Aged 56, he ran a Syrian intelligence office in Damascus in 2011 and 2012.
He had under his command the other Syrian arrested across the Rhine on Tuesday. He allegedly took part in 2 murders and torture of at least 2,000 people.
The hunt against those responsible for the abuses attributed to the regime of Bashar al-Assad is just beginning. Since 2018, France and Germany have already issued four international arrest warrants against senior Syrian officials.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) estimates that 60,000 people have been killed by torture or prison conditions in Bashar al-Assad prisons.