| ...in our archives as Alaa M.... |
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
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Despoiler of Deraa...
'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.
The accused helped to perpetrate "a systematic attack on the civilian population," said federal prosecutor Anna Zabeck as she read out the charge sheet.
He "tortured detainees by inflicting substantial bodily harm on them," she told the court.
The defendant, who wore a blue suit and an FFP2 face mask in court, kept his head down while the charges were being read out.
| Related: The Daily Mail has the usual, adding: |
He worked in several places as an orthopaedic doctor, including in the spa town of Bad Wildungen, before being arrested in June 2020 after Syrian witnesses came forward.
He worked at a clinic near Kassel in central Germany, where multiple Syrians recognized the doctor from his time in Syria and reported him to German police.