Hague court gives ex-Syrian interrogator 26 years for crimes including rape, torture
A court in The Hague on Monday sentenced a 58-year-old former interrogator for the Assad regime in Syria to 26 years in prison after convicting him of 19 international crimes committed against eight victims in Syria in 2013 and 2014, including torture, rape, and other sexual violence.
The District Court of The Hague found that the man served as an interrogator for the National Defense Forces (NDF), a paramilitary organization aligned with President Bashar al-Assad, in the city of Salamiyah. During the Syrian uprising, the NDF violently suppressed anti-government protests, arrested opponents and demonstrators, and operated its own detention centers where detainees were interrogated and subjected to serious abuses. Judges found that the defendant committed crimes against humanity against eight victims in three detention centers around Salamiyah. He was acquitted of charges involving a ninth person because the court could not establish that he had been that victim’s interrogator.
According to the court, the defendant either personally carried out abuses or ordered other NDF members to do so. Victims were handcuffed and blindfolded, repeatedly beaten with various objects; kicked; folded into a car tire; hung upside down; or electrocuted, often while forced to remain naked. He also sexually abused several victims and raped one of them. The court said the defendant repeatedly created conditions of mortal fear, intimidation, pain, hopelessness, and helplessness. Victims described during the trial how the abuses continue to haunt them.
The ruling marked the first time a person has stood trial in the Netherlands for “any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity” as a crime against humanity under Article 4 of the International Crimes Act. The court convicted the man on those charges in relation to two victims and acquitted him in three other cases.
In imposing the 26-year sentence, judges cited the exceptional gravity of the crimes and the suffering inflicted on the victims. The court also said the defendant repeatedly insulted and disparaged the victims, their families, and their testimony during hearings, causing them renewed pain.
All victims sought compensation for emotional suffering, but the court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction because, under customary international law, the defendant could invoke jurisdictional immunity. Their compensation claims were therefore declared inadmissible.
