Congratulations to Germany!

[Richard A]

Scrolling through the news stories on the BBC website, I see that Germany is prosecuting former officers of the Syrian regime for crimes against humanity. The picture of Anwar al Raslan in a Koblenz court is telling - he looks decidedly pissed off, certainly not ashamed

Now another alleged torturer is reported to be on trial in Frankfurt. Apparently both fled Syria when they thought Assad might lose. It's good to see that Germany is taking action against these guys. In the UK, I fear it wouldn't be a priority - although such persons might, I guess, be viewed as Islamic terrorist suspects, which would be poetic justice given their government's propaganda.

[Arneb]

Yes, it was an important and very, very labour-intensive trial. There was some discussions about wether Germany was sending a wrong signal, prosecuting precisely those people who had broken with the Assad regime. But the deeds were so horrendous that a deal was impossible. The prosecutor had pursued a murder conviction with a statement of the extraordinary gravity of guilt ("Verurteilung wegen Mordes mit Feststellung der besonderen Schwere der Schuld"), which would have made an appeal for clemency after 15 years impossible. The court did not convict him in fewer cases than the prosecutor had sought, and it withheld "extraordinary gravity" because he confessed some cases and because, well, he broke with the Syrian regime.

In another high-profile case in Frankfurt, a physician is being charged with torture in the same Al-Khatib prison. He flew to Germany and worked in an orthopedic rehabilitation hospital here, being known and liked for his excellent German and mild manners...

[Richard A]

I'm sure he had mild manners. A lot of war criminals - not all, but a lot - had the positions they did in the regime they served precisely because they were intelligent. And hence now have more sense than to attract attention by throwing their weight around. Blend in, be just an ordinary doctor who came originally from the Middle East, whose patients speak well of you and you have a far better chance of staying under the radar.

Even more chilling is something a police officer told me years ago about paedophiles, a group he'd spent a large part of his career pursuing. He said, "If I put you in a room full of people and told you you had to choose one to look after your kids, I'd bet money you'd pick the paedophile. That guy that you thought was a bid weird - he's probably never harmed anyone in his life. But the paedophile would be the one you thought was a really charming bloke." That was before the truth about Jimmy Savile came out - which proved the officer right. Heid and Lianachan probably remember his show - and probably enjoyed it as I did.