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A court in Frankfurt has sentenced a Syrian doctor to life in prison after finding him guilty of torture, murder and other crimes against humanity committed under the dictatorship of Bashar Assad.

Presiding judge Christoph Koller said defendant Alaa M. had "severely injured nine people and killed two more" while serving in a military hospital in the Syrian city of Homs from 2011 through 2012.

Koller said the doctor had been "part of a brutal reaction by Assad's dictatorial, unjust regime" and added: "Above all, the accused enjoyed harming people that seemed inferior and low-value to him."

The judge also revealed that the Assad regime had, prior to its toppling in December 2024, attempted to influence the trial. The court suspected that non-public information had been transmitted back to Syria and that relatives of witnesses had been threatened.

"No torturer, regardless of where they commit their crimes, can expect to escape justice," said Koller.

M. had lived in Germany for ten years and had worked as an orthopedic surgeon in several clinics, most recently in the central state of Hesse. He was arrested in summer 2020 after some of his victims recognized him from a TV documentary about Homs.

Monday's ruling was not the first in Germany concerning state torture in Syria. In January 2022, a court in Koblenz sentenced a former Syrian secret service official to life in prison and an accomplice to four-and-a-half years.

Last month, a Syrian man was arrested in the southwestern state of Rhineland-Palatinate on suspicion of having been involved in torture in his role as a prison guard. He remains in custody.

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