By Ayomide Otitoju
A German court on Monday sentenced Syrian doctor Alaa Mousa to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, including murder and torture, committed during his time at military hospitals under the regime of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
The verdict, delivered by the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt, marks a significant milestone in the global push for accountability in Syria’s civil war. Presiding Judge Christoph Koller described Mousa’s actions as “part of a brutal reaction by Assad’s dictatorial, unjust regime.”
Mousa, 40, was found guilty of torturing detainees on 18 occasions between 2011 and 2012 at military hospitals in Damascus and Homs. In one of the most harrowing cases, he was accused of setting fire to a teenage boy’s genitals and, in another, administering a fatal injection to a patient who resisted a beating.
The court also convicted Mousa of war crimes and multiple counts of torture and murder. He had denied all charges during the trial, which concluded months after Assad was ousted from power in December 2024.
Mousa arrived in Germany in 2015 on a skilled worker visa, joining thousands of Syrians who fled the country’s civil war. He continued working as an orthopaedic doctor until his arrest in June 2020. His past affiliations remained unknown to colleagues and employers, one of whom described him as “unremarkable.”
According to prosecutors, Mousa worked in military hospitals that treated political detainees, many of whom were subjected to severe abuse instead of medical care. In one incident, he allegedly poured a flammable substance on a prisoner’s wounds, set him on fire, and then kicked him in the face, breaking multiple teeth. Other victims were reportedly beaten with medical instruments and subjected to inhumane conditions.
Testimonies from victims and former colleagues played a key role in the trial. Witnesses identified Mousa and recounted horrific abuse. One former detainee said he was forced to carry the bodies of prisoners who died after being injected by Mousa. Another described the military hospital in Damascus as a “slaughterhouse.”
During the trial’s opening in 2022, Mousa admitted to witnessing violence but claimed he never participated, saying he was too afraid to intervene. “I felt sorry for them, but I couldn’t say anything, or it would have been me instead of the patient,” he told the court.
Germany has emerged as a global leader in prosecuting war crimes under the legal doctrine of universal jurisdiction, which permits prosecution of serious crimes regardless of where they occurred. The Mousa case is among several related to atrocities committed during Syria’s conflict.
In 2022, a German court in Koblenz sentenced a former Syrian intelligence officer to life imprisonment in the world’s first trial addressing state-sponsored torture in Syria.
The landmark ruling against Mousa further cements Germany’s role in holding perpetrators of war crimes accountable, even far from the conflict zones where such atrocities occurred.
