BERLIN (AFP) – Investigators in Germany and Sweden yesterday arrested eight suspects allied with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government over alleged participation in crimes against humanity in Syria, prosecutors said.
The arrests, five in Germany and three in Sweden, represent the latest attempt to pursue justice for the victims of abuses committed in Syria’s civil war.
The suspects detained yesterday are accused of taking part in a “violent crackdown on a peaceful anti-government protest” in the Al-Yarmouk district in Damascus on July 13, 2012, Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said.
It said the four stateless Syrian Palestinians and Syrian national detained in Germany were “strongly suspected of killing and attempting to kill civilians, qualified as crimes against humanity and war crimes”.
It named the Syrian Palestinians as Jihad A, Mahmoud A, Sameer S and Wael S and said that they were part of a pro-Assad militia called the “Free Palestine Movement” (FPM). The Syrian national, identified as Mazhar J, is believed to have worked for Syrian military intelligence.
“They and other accessories specifically targeted the civilian protesters, shooting at them”, resulting in six deaths and other serious injuries, the prosecutor said.
The war between Assad’s troops and armed opposition groups, including Islamic State (IS), erupted after the government repressed peaceful pro-democracy protests in 2011.
It has killed more than half a million people, forced millions to flee their homes and ravaged Syria’s economy as well as its infrastructure.
Yesterday’s arrests took place as a result of work carried out by an investigation team named ‘Caesar’ after a defector who worked as a photographer for Syrian military police.
In 2013 he smuggled more than 50,000 photographs out of Syria, many of them documenting the deaths of prisoners in detention centres or military hospitals.
German prosecutors said that those arrested in Sweden also belonged to the FPM and participated in the crimes on July 13, 2012.
Ulrika Bentelius Egelrud, the Swedish prosecutor in charge of the investigation, said the suspects were arrested thanks to “good cooperation with Germany, Eurojust and Europol”.
German prosecutors say the four Syrian Palestinians also “physically abused civilians from Al Yarmouk severely and repeatedly” between mid-2012 and 2014, including at militia checkpoints.
