Germany sentences Syrian doctor to life for torturing detainees

A German court has given a Syrian doctor life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, Al-Monitor reported on June 15th. He was found guilty of torture and murder, committed in Syrian military hospitals.

Alaa Mousa, 40, was tried by the higher regional court in Frankfurt for acts of torture at military hospitals in Homs and Damascus between 2011 and 2012. The court said his actions were part of the Assad regime’s “brutal reaction” to anti-government protests that escalated into a protracted war.

Germany prosecuted the case under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which enables courts to try severe crimes committed abroad. Mousa’s trial marks one of several attempts by European states to hold Syrian officials accountable amid limited international legal avenues.

Federal prosecutors said Mousa tortured detainees on at least 18 occasions. He was convicted of delivering a fatal injection to one patient, setting fire to a teenager’s genitals, and kicking another man so forcefully that three teeth were dislodged. He also reportedly once poured flammable liquid on open wounds and ignited them.

Witnesses described the military hospitals as sites of systematic abuse. One referred to a Damascus facility as a “slaughterhouse.” Another said he was forced to carry the bodies of victims who had died after receiving injections from Mousa.

The BBC reported on June 10th that many Syrian ex-officials witnessed the normalisation of torture in prisons under Assad’s leadership. One military police officer in Saydnaya prison, reffered to as Hussam, said: “Our superiors would say torture them, don’t let them sleep at night, throw them a party. Put them in a grave if you want to, bury them alive if you want to.”

Judge Christoph Koller noted that the case in the German court was further complicated by efforts from the former Assad regime to disrupt the trial. “Relatives of witnesses were threatened,” he said, adding that “confidential information” had been passed to Syrian authorities before the government’s collapse in late 2024.

Mousa entered Germany in 2015 under a visa for highly skilled workers and worked as an orthopedic doctor until his arrest in 2020. His case follows Germany’s earlier landmark ruling in 2022, when a former Syrian army officer was sentenced to life for overseeing torture at a Damascus detention centre.

Al-Monitor, BBC, Maghrebi.org