Germany is to start its first war crimes trial over atrocities in Syria, as a mass refugee influx brings not only witnesses and those affected into the country, but also suspects.
Aria L, a 21-year-old German national and suspected Muslim militant, posted photographs of himself on Facebook posing next to two decapitated heads in Syria — and his case is not the only one from the war-torn nation to occupy German justice.
“Ten investigations linked to Syria or Iraq are currently being examined by the federal prosecutor, on top of more than 30 cases against former jihadists over their membership in a terrorist group,” a spokesman for the German prosecutor’s office said.
Among other key war crimes suspects are Ibrahim al-F, a 41-year-old Syrian and the alleged leader of an rebel group known for kidnapping and torturing civilians in Aleppo. Another is Suliman A.S, a 24-year-old Syrian suspected of having kidnapped a UN soldier in 2013. Such investigations have gained momentum, particularly as 1.1 million asylum seekers arrived in Germany last year.
Authorities dealing with their asylum requests have picked up and sent 25 to 30 tips every day to prosecutors, as Germany since 2013 requires applicants to complete a form asking if they have witnessed war crimes or could name perpetrators of violations.
“The refugee influx has provided new opportunities for prosecutors to collect specific information,” Human Rights Watch expert on international justice Geraldine Mattioli said.
Germany is not new to trying war crimes committed abroad, although past attempts have been met with mixed success.
In 1993, pushed by an inflow of refugees fleeing the war in Yugoslavia, Germany formed a police unit dedicated to investigating war crimes committed in the Balkans.
German prosecutors eventually examined 127 cases and heard 4,500 witnesses, but the Herculean effort led to only four trials, including a genocide conviction.
Undeterred, the prosecution service sought ways to refine their procedure, tackling cases involving massacres in Africa’s Great Lakes region. There, the judiciary dispatched its investigators to collect evidence and sought to offer better protection for witnesses.
The painstaking task led to the convictions of two Rwandan rebel leaders for masterminding from their homes in Germany massacres in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yet during the costly trial lasting four-and-a-half years, some charges had to be dropped due to lack of evidence and witnesses.
Investigators dealing with Syrian cases face the challenge of access. With the war still raging, they are unable to travel there to gather evidence.
While propaganda images posted by militants on social networks offer a glimpse of the atrocities, it is difficult to authenticate the photographs or their provenance.
However, with the mass arrivals of refugees, Germany is taking a proactive stance by collecting information, rather than waiting for specific accusations.
The hope is that each detail being collected could one day help build a broader picture or point to a specific trend.
One shortcoming is that the process rarely targets officials of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, as comparatively few Syrian soldiers have become refugees arriving in Europe, Mattioli said.
At the same time, Mattioli said that the search for justice “has to start somewhere.”
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