The Dutch Public Prosecutor's Office announced the arrest of a man suspected of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria in 2013 when he was a member of a militia loyal to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The Dutch Public Prosecution announced on Tuesday that the detainee is 34 years old and has lived in the Netherlands since 2020, and applied for asylum there, but he did not give his name.
"The suspect was said to have been a member of the pro-regime Liwa al-Quds militia that works closely with the Syrian intelligence services and the Russian armed forces," Dutch prosecutors said in their statement, adding that he had participated in the violent arrest of a Syrian national who was then tortured in a prison run by Syrian Air Intelligence. .
And the Dutch police said - in a statement - that the suspect will appear before the investigating judge at the Hague Court on Friday, and "he is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and he is suspected of joining an organization aimed at committing international crimes."
This is the first time that the Dutch authorities have arrested a suspect in war crimes who had fought for the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but Dutch courts had previously convicted a number of Syrians of war crimes who were members of the opposition and Islamist groups in Syria.
Such cases are heard in the Netherlands under the principles of "universal jurisdiction" which allow for suspected war crimes or possible crimes against humanity to be prosecuted abroad if the prosecution cannot take place in the country where they are believed to have been committed.