They all come back from hell. Seven Syrians victims or witnesses of rape and sexual abuse in detention centers of the regime of Bashar al-Assad have filed a complaint with the German justice, announced this Thursday the German NGO ECCHR.
The complaint, which comes at a time when the world's first trial of abuses attributed to the Damascus regime has been held in Germany since April, relates specifically to nine senior officials of the Syrian government and Air Force intelligence services, said clarified the Berlin-based NGO which supports this approach.
All complainants incarcerated in Syria
Among those targeted is a former close associate of President Assad, the former head of the Air Force's intelligence services posted until 2019 Jamil Hassan, who is already the subject of an arrest warrant. international of Germany and France. German justice suspects him of "crimes against humanity".
These complainants, four women and three men, were detained in various Air Force Intelligence detention centers in Damascus, Aleppo and Hama. Between April 2011 and August 2013, they were all victims or witnesses of torture and sexual violence, such as "rape, electric shocks on the genitals, forced nudity or even forced abortion".
More and more complaints
For three years, complaints against Syrian officials for acts of torture perpetrated in the jails of the country have multiplied in several European countries, in particular in Germany where the justice has been active in the face of abuses widely documented by NGOs and testimonies of survivors refugees in Europe.
Germany is home to some 800,000 Syrian refugees, the largest contingent in Europe. These remedies are based on the legal principle of universal jurisdiction which allows a State to prosecute the perpetrators of serious humanitarian crimes, in particular war crimes or crimes against humanity, regardless of their nationality and where crimes have been committed.
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