Germany arrests 2 Syrians, one of them accused of war crimes related to a deadly attack in 2013
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $1.44 a week*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $5.77 plus GST every four weeks. After 52 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/09/2023 (1141 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
BERLIN (AP) — Two Syrian men have been arrested in Germany on suspicion of membership in extremist groups, and one of them is suspected of involvement in a 2013 attack in eastern Syria in which more than 60 Shiite fighters and civilians were killed, prosecutors said Thursday.
The suspects, identified only as Amer A. and Basel O. in line with German privacy rules, were arrested on Wednesday, the federal prosecutors’ office said. Both are accused of membership in a foreign terrorist organization — Liwa Jund al Rahman, or Brigade of the Soldiers of the Merciful God, an armed rebel group that prosecutors said Amer A. formed in February 2013 and led.
Amer A. is also accused of committing war crimes by means of forced displacement and of membership in the Islamic State group.
The war crimes charges relate to a June 2013 attack on Hatla, in Syria’s eastern Deir el-Zour province, that killed about 60 Shiite residents. At the time, the attack underlined the increasingly sectarian nature of Syria’s civil war. Prosecutors said the attack was carried out jointly by Liwa Jund al Rahman under Amer A.’s command and other jihadi groups.
Survivors of the attack were forced to flee to elsewhere in Syria or abroad “by intentionally stoking fears of death — also by means of arson and looting,” prosecutors said in a statement. “This forced displacement meant the end of all Shiite presence in Hatla.”
Amer A. joined IS in July 2014 and put his group under its command, prosecutors said. They said Basel O. took a “prominent military position” in his group by late 2013 and commanded units of the organization in battles with Syrian government forces in December that year and in April 2014, particularly at Deir el-Zour’s military airfield.
A judge on Wednesday ordered the two suspects held in custody pending a potential indictment.
Germany’s application of the rule of “universal jurisdiction,” allowing the prosecution of serious crimes committed abroad, led last year to the first conviction of a senior Syrian official for crimes against humanity.
And in February, a German court convicted a Palestinian man from Syria of a war crime and murder for launching a grenade into a crowd of civilians waiting for food in Damascus in 2014.