FRANKFURT: German prosecutors accused a Syrian doctor on Wednesday of torturing detainees and killing one of them while working in military hospitals in his war-torn homeland, on the first day of a landmark crimes against humanity trial in Frankfurt.
The accused, 36-year-old Alaa Mousa, arrived in Germany in 2015 where he continued to practise medicine until his arrest. The trial at Frankfurt’s higher regional court is the second of its kind in Germany, and adds to other European efforts to hold loyalists of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to account for alleged war-era atrocities.
Mousa faces 18 counts of torturing detainees at military hospitals in Homs and Damascus in 2011-12, including setting fire to a teenage boy’s genitals. He also faces one count of murder, for having allegedly administered a lethal injection to a prisoner who resisted being beaten.
GAZA: When an Israeli airstrike destroyed his family’s home in November, Zein Oroq was pinned under rubble. He was...
BRUSSELS: European Union leaders gathered on Wednesday for talks set to include stepping up sanctions against Iran...
JERUSALEM/CAIRO:Israel will make its own decisions about how to defend itself, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said...
LONDON: Iran said on Wednesday its military was ready to confront any attack by Israel, with the air force saying it...
GAZA: When an Israeli shell struck Gaza’s largest fertility clinic in December, the explosion blasted the lids off...
COPENHAGEN: A fire that ripped through Copenhagen’s Old Stock Exchange, one of the Danish capital’s most famous...
MOSCOW: The number of people killed in plane crashes in Russia dropped to a decade low in 2023, despite Western...
PETROPAVLOVSK, Kazakhstan: Kazakhstan’s president described floods across the north of the country as a national...