Lifelong imprisonment in torture process against Syrian doctor

A doctor in Frankfurt has been sentenced to life imprisonment for torture and war crimes in his Syrian homeland. At the same time, the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court determined the special severity of the guilt, which as well as excluding an early release from prison in practice after 15 years. For the Syrian defendant, accommodation was imposed in preventive detention. In the procedure, the doctor was charged with two deaths and eight cases of serious torture, committed in Syria in 2011 and 2012.

The 40-year-old has lived in Germany for ten years and had worked as an orthopedic surgeon in several clinics, most recently in Bad Wildungen in northern Hesse. The family man was arrested in the summer of 2020 – victims had recognized him in a TV documentary about the Syrian city of Homs.

Since then he has been in custody. The doctor is said to have tortured arrested civilians who were attributed to the opposition to rulers Bashar al-Assad. The process Against him began in January 2022.

Process according to the world law principle

The fact that the man has to answer to a German court for crimes in his homeland is also due to the so -called world law principle in international criminal law. It allows possible war crimes of foreigners in other countries to be pursued in this country too.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office had requested life imprisonment for the man in her plea, with subsequent preventive detention. His lawyers demanded an acquittal for the accusation of the killings. Your client did not work in Homs in the period in question. In the process, Alaa M. himself did not think he was the victim of a complotting.

The judgment is not yet final.