Syrian War Crimes Trial in Germany

⚖️ A German court sentenced a Syrian intelligence officer to life in prison yesterday for crimes against humanity, concluding the world's second trial related to state-sponsored torture under President Bashar al-Assad.

• Anwar Raslan, 58, was linked to the murder of over 30 people and the torture of 4,000+ more while he oversaw a prison known as "Hell on Earth" in 2010 and 2011 during Syria's ongoing civil war.
• Raslan fled Syria in 2012 and gained asylum in Germany in 2014. He was arrested in Berlin in 2019 alongside another former intelligence officer, who was sentenced last February to four-and-a-half years in prison for lesser crimes against humanity.
• Usually, cases related to crimes against humanity are heard by an international tribunal. But in 2014, China and Russia vetoed a UN resolution that would have referred allegations of Syrian torture to the International Criminal Court.

+In the know: Germany and other European nations abide by a legal principle known as universal jurisdiction, allowing cases to be tried even if the alleged crimes were committed outside their borders.