Why is Germany trying a Syrian doctor for torture?
Syrian Doctor Alaa Mousa, 36, who has been on trial in Germany for the past one year, has refuted all allegations of torture against his patients. Mousa denied the prosecution's charge that said he had tortured his patients at military hospitals in Damascus and Homs, Syria, in 2011-12.
In a hearing in Germany’s Frankfurt Higher Regional Court, Mousa said that he did work at the military hospitals, but did not torture the detained prisoners. He also denied the allegation of killing a patient and operating upon another patient without anesthesia, which the prosecution had accused him of. The case is now lined up for 13 hearings, which may conclude by the end of March 2022.
But why is the case? Here's what you need to know:
1. SYRIA TO GERMANY
Alaa Mousa arrived in Germany in 2015 on a skilled workers visa. He had applied for the German visa at the German Embassy in Lebanon. Prior to that, Mousa had worked at several places. The doctor was arrested in June 2020 in Germany, and placed in pre-trial detention.
2. THE CHARGES AGAINST MOUSA (TRIGGER WARNING: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF VIOLENCE)
Syrian doctor Alaa Mousa is accused on 18 counts of torturing prisoners in Damascus and Homs in 2011-12. At one count, he is accused of the murder of a patient by administering him a lethal injection when the patient resisted the beatings. The doctor is also accused of a bone fracture correction surgery without giving anaesthesia to the patient.
In one such crime of his highlighted by the prosecution, he is accused of dousing the genitals of a teenage boy by alcohol and lighting it on fire with his cigarette at military hospital no 608 in Homs. Along with this, Mousa is also accused of depriving the patients of their reproductive capacity in two cases.
According to federal prosceutors, Mousa had tortured nine other people in the detention centre. In one case, he beat up a man who had epileptic seizure. After a few days, Mousa gave a medicine to that patient and the latter died, with the cause of his death unknown.
One of his crimes listed by the prosceution is hanging people from the ceiling and beating them up with a plastic baton. In one case, he is accused of kicking the infected wound of a prisoner, pouring disinfectant over it, and then setting it on fire.
3. THE PRISONERS-CUM-PATIENTS
In 2011-12, civilian protests against the Bashar Al Assad government intensified. In a bid to quell the dissent, the government went harsh against the civilians, which also included political oppnents of Assad. They were arrested and brought to the military service hospital in Damascus and Homs, where it is alleged that the doctors committed severe atrocities on the prisoners. There were several cases of torture against the Assad regime, and it is only when the witnesses started coming forward that torture cases saw the light of day.
4. MOUSA, IN HIS DEFENCE
The Syrian doctor refuted all the allegations of torture against him in a latest court hearing, and only acknowledged that he did work at the military hospital in Syria. Mousa pinned the blame of torture on the Military Secret Service of Syria, who he said was in full control of the hospital.
According to Mousa, the Military Secret Service was behind the atrocities, and being a doctor, he didn’t ask questions because if he did, it would have been him instead of the patients. He added that he was scared of the military staff and also the hospital staff that had just joined in.
He also denied torture to a patient by dousing the gentials with fire. He said he “did not do that” and felt sorry for the patients who were being blindfolded by the military staff.
In his defence to the court, he said that the protests though started slow, became radical in the later days. He himself denied his and his family’s involvement in any political activism, and said that as a doctor, he felt bad for the atrocities committed on the prisoners.
5. WHAT THE PROSECUTION SAYS
Syrian lawyer Anwar Al Bunni, who also heads a human rights group in Berlin, has built a strong case against Mousa. There are at least 9 planned eye witnesses which the prosecution claims will depose against the doctor.
Bunni has also labelled an accusation against the Syrian Embassy in Berlin for providing forged documents to Mousa to deny his presence at the military hospital. The staff even tried to help Mousa escape Germany.
Moreover, Bunni said that one of the nine witnesses was being threatened of dire consequences - that of seeing a family member killed - if the witness gave a testimony in court.
6. WHY A TRIAL IN GERMANY
The German trial of the Syrian doctor for his war-related crimes is enabled by the legal principle of universal jurisdiction. This allows crimes of exceptional gravity to be prosecuted by a country even if they were committed in a different country.
Also, this is not the first trial involving Syrian war crimes. Earlier this month, in one such ruling, a former Syrian colonel was sentenced by the court for overseeing the murder of 27 people and torture of 4,000 prisoners at the Damascus detention centre.
A February 2021 report by The Guardian says a German court had convicted Eyad Al- Gharib, a member of Assad's secret police, for facilitating torture of prisoners in detention centres in Syria. The court sentenced him to four and a half years in prison. This was also the first landmark ruling that set precedents for other crimes against humanity cases in Syria.
Other cases involving Syrian convicts have also been taken up in France, Norway, Sweden and Austria.