Today, Wednesday, the German judiciary sentenced a former Syrian intelligence agent to four and a half years in prison for complicity in crimes against humanity, as part of the first trial in the world linked to the violations of Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The Supreme Court in Koblenz convicted the Syrian Iyad al-Gharib, 44, on charges of participating in the arrest of at least 30 protesters in Douma, the largest city in Eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, in September and October 2011, and transporting them to a detention center of the intelligence services.

With the approaching tenth anniversary of the outbreak of the popular uprising in Syria on March 15, 2011, this is the first time in the world that a court in the world has issued a ruling in a case related to the brutal and bloody suppression by Damascus of the protests for freedom that took place in the context of the "Arab Spring".

Al-Gharib is the first accused to appear since April 23 before the Supreme Regional Court in Koblenz (West), to receive his sentence after the judges chose to divide the procedures into two parts.

As for the second defendant, Anwar Raslan (58 years), he is considered more important in the vast Syrian security apparatus and is being prosecuted for committing crimes against humanity in killing 58 people and torturing 4 thousand detainees.

The trial of this former colonel is expected to continue until at least the end of October.

To prosecute them, Germany applies the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows the perpetrators of the most serious crimes to be tried regardless of their nationality and where the crimes occurred.

Suits

Cases are being filed before national courts in Germany, Sweden and France at the initiative of the many Syrian refugees in Europe, and it is currently the only possibility to judge the violations committed in Syria with the paralysis of the international judiciary.

The prosecution requested a prison sentence of 5 and a half years against Iyad al-Gharib, who was in charge of the lowest levels of intelligence, before he defected in 2012 and eventually fled Syria in February 2013.

On April 25, 2018, he arrived in Germany after a long trip in Turkey and then in Greece, and his past was never hidden.

When he narrated his arduous journey to the authorities responsible for deciding on his asylum application, he aroused the interest of the German judiciary, which led to his arrest in February 2019.

The prosecution maintains that it was part of a system in which torture was practiced on a large scale.

Caesar's photos were irrefutable evidence of the crimes committed by the Syrian regime against thousands of detainees (Al-Jazeera)

Iyad al-Gharib - during the hearings that lasted 10 months, in which the appearance of Anwar Raslan was prominent - was silent and hid his face from the cameras, yet he wrote a letter expressing his grief for the victims.

And he was crying as he listened to his lawyer demanding his innocence, arguing that he would have put his life and the lives of his family in danger if he did not carry out orders in a system that crushed every intention to disobey.

'Caesar file'

The accused was under the command of Bashar al-Assad's cousin, and his confidant, Hafez Makhlouf, was known for his cruelty.

However, one of the civil prosecution attorney Patrick Crocker denounced his silence, saying that people "of his rank could be very important to giving us information (about Syrian officials) that we are actually targeting, but he chose not to do so."

More than 10 Syrians testified about the horrific abuse they endured in Al-Khatib Prison.

Some of the witnesses were interviewed without revealing their identities, and their faces were hidden or made to wear a wig for fear of reprisals from their relatives who are still in Syria.

For the first time, photos from the "Caesar file" were shown to the court. This former military police photographer leaked 50,000 pictures, risking his life, showing 6,786 Syrian detainees brutally murdered, starving, or suffering from the effects of torture.

The photos - analyzed in court by forensic pathologist Professor Marcus Rothschild - constitute compelling material evidence.