On December 16, 2020, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office issued a memorandum against the Syrian doctor Alaa Moussa, in which he extended his detention and charged him with crimes against humanity.
The German authorities had arrested the Syrian doctor Alaa Moussa on June 19, 2020. The arrest operation on charges of practicing torture in hospitals while he was in Syria came after testimonies provided by a number of Syrian organisations in Europe, which document the active participation of Doctor Moussa in the torture of the wounded and detainees in Homs Military Hospital from 2011-2013.
Al-Jazeera had broadcast an investigative investigation on May 10, 2020, in which it reviewed testimonies from Moussa’s colleagues as well as some of his victims. His colleague, Muhammad Wahbi, mentioned in that report the violent practices that Moussa used to carry out with opponents of the regime, which start with direct torture that may lead to death, and extend to even performing surgical operations without anaesthesia. The doctor also mentioned the names of two other doctors who were still in Homs, and who were practicing the same practices alongside Moussa, namely Dr. Osama Al-Fakhry and Osama Al-Nouqary.
Musa comes from the town of Al-Hawash, west of Homs, and is a specialist in orthopaedic surgery.
The following is the full text of a judge’s statement by an investigating judge at the German Federal Court of Justice:
The accused was arrested on June 19, 2020, based on an arrest warrant from the investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice on June 19, 2020 in the state of Hesse (see Press Release No. 22 of June 22, 2020). He appeared before the investigative judge at the Federal Court of Justice on December 9, 2020, who issued an extended arrest warrant on December 16, 2020 and again ordered the implementation of pretrial detention.
Other allegations also relate to the accused’s alleged activity as a doctor in a Syrian Military Intelligence prison. There is now urgent suspicion against Alaa M. By committing crimes against humanity, killing a person, participating in 18 cases of torture, inflicting severe physical and psychological harm to a person, and in seven cases seriously depriving people of their freedom, in one case, causing the death of a person and in one case he tried to deprive another person of reproductive capacity (Article 7 (1) Figures 1, 5, 6, 8 and 9 VStGB). The crimes he is accused of are identical to criminal offenses such as wilful killing and serious bodily harm.
In the arrest warrant, extended on December 16, 2020, the defendant was primarily charged with the following facts:
By the end of April 2011 at the latest, the Syrian regime began to use brutal violence to suppress all activities of the opposition that were critical of the government in all areas. The Syrian intelligence services played an essential role in this. The aim was to stop the protest movement with the help of intelligence as quickly as possible and intimidate the population. For this purpose, real or alleged members of the opposition were arrested, detained, tortured, and in some cases killed without legal basis throughout the country.
Alaa M. A doctor in the Military Intelligence prison in Homs (Syria). In the following cases, he tortured civilians who were held in the Military Intelligence prison in Homs or the military hospital there. The background to the prison was the allegation of participation in activities critical of the regime, especially the demonstrations, or the origin of a place or part of the city attributed to the opposition.
Since October 23, 2011, the dead man, A., his brother, and an acquaintance have been arrested at the headquarters of the Department of Military Intelligence 261 and subjected to ill-treatment several times. Among other things, he hit Defendant A in the face, hit him with a plastic tube and kicked him in the head. After A’s health deteriorated dramatically – due to an epileptic seizure he had suffered while in prison – the accused administered a pill. Then no further reactions appeared and he died during the day.
In the summer of 2011, Alaa M. By pouring alcohol on the genitals of a 14 or 15 year old child. The boy, who was screaming and crying in pain, was taken to the emergency room of the military hospital in Homs.
At the end of July 2012, the accused and two others mistreated a prisoner. Among other things, they punched and kicked him everywhere and hung him from the ceiling. About a week later, the accused poured a flammable liquid on the prisoner’s hand and set it on fire. As a result, he suffered burns. In all, the defendants attended ten additional torture sessions at the prisoner’s expense.
After another prisoner sustained multiple wounds to the arms and legs of another prisoner due to poor hygiene, he was transferred to the Military Hospital in Homs in mid-2012. A few days after his arrival, the accused went to his cell, cursed him, and hit him with a baton. Then he stepped on the sore wound on his elbow with his shoes that had leaked blood and pus. Alaa M. He poured the prisoner over a wound, helped him with an alcohol disinfectant, and set them on fire. Then the accused kicked him in the face, badly damaging three teeth, and later had to replace them with a prosthetic. Then the accused hit the victim again with a baton, which hit him everywhere. In the end he passed out from a blow to the head.
After a few days, the accused entered the cell of the victim of the aforementioned torture. The subsequent murder victim was housed. And about 20 other prisoners there, all with their hands cuffed behind their backs. The accused hit and kicked people, and O defended himself with kicks. However, the accused used his baton against him and was able to fix with a male nurse on the floor. Shortly thereafter, the accused gave him a lethal injection in his arm, from which he died within a few minutes.