THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dutch police arrested a Syrian-born man suspected of committing war crimes in
2013 while fighting as a member of pro-Damascus militia forces in
Syria’s
ongoing civil war, prosecutors said Tuesday.
اضافة اعلان
The 34-year-old man was taken into custody in the
southern town of Kerkrade after applying for asylum in the
Netherlands in 2020.
He is suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity, Brechtje van de
Moosdijk, spokeswoman for the public prosecution service said. “He is also
accused of participating in an organization whose aim is to commit
international crimes,” she said in a statement. The suspect will go before a
judge in a first closed-door appearance on Friday.
The suspect, who
was not identified, is said to have been a member of the Liwa al-Quds militia
who are loyal to the regime of
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In January
2013, he and militia members, as well as Syrian intelligence forces allegedly
arrested a civilian man at his home in the al-Nayrab Palestinian refugee camp near
the northwestern city of Aleppo. “The civilian was mistreated during the arrest
and later taken to a Syrian Air Force intelligence prison, where he is said to
have been tortured,” Van de Moosdijk said.
Syria’s war is estimated to have killed nearly half
a million people and displaced millions since it began with a brutal crackdown
of anti-government protests in 2011. It escalated to pull in foreign powers and
global Islamist extremists.
Militia forces “were an important link in a
widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population,” Van de Moosdijk
said. “They were used, for example, in the crackdown on demonstrations of
civilians, and to arrest civilians.” Dutch prosecutors regard Liwa al-Quds as a
criminal organization, similar to the Daesh, she said.
A German court in January sentenced a former Syrian colonel
to life in jail for crimes against humanity in the first global trial over
state-sponsored torture in Syria. Anwar Raslan, 58, was found guilty of
overseeing the murder of 27 people and the torture of 4,000 others at the
Al-Khatib detention center in
Damascus, also known as “Branch 251”, in 2011 and
2012. He had sought refuge in Germany after deserting the Syrian regime in
2012.
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