ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – German authorities on Tuesday announced the arrest of a Syrian national accused of acts of killing and torture as a member of the notorious Branch 251 intelligence unit under former President Bashar al-Assad.

The arrested individual, named Fahad A., is a suspected member of the al-Khatib department, also known as Branch 251, of the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate, and “is strongly suspected of acts of killing, torture, and deprivation of liberty as crimes against humanity,” according to a statement by the German Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office.

The statement said that the suspect was a guard in a prison run by the al-Khatib department, and “took part in well over 100 interrogations where prisoners were subjected to severe physical abuse, for instance electrocution or beatings with cables.”

“Following his superiors’ orders, the suspect also harassed prisoners at night by, for example, hanging them from the ceiling, pouring cold water over them or forcing them to remain in uncomfortable positions. No less than 70 inmates succumbed to such abuse and the catastrophic conditions of imprisonment,” the statement added.

Throughout the country’s 14-year-long civil war, the Assad regime was responsible for numerous war crimes and serious violations of international law and human rights, including the use of chemical weapons, torture, enforced disappearances, sexual violence, and collective punishment.

In the first international trial against a Syrian official over the Assad regime’s atrocities during the civil war, in January 2022, a German court sentenced a Syrian secret intelligence officer to life in prison after finding him guilty of torture, sexual violence, and multiple counts of murder. The office was also a member of the al-Khatib department.

An August 2024 report by the UK-based Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that over 113,000 individuals, including over 3,000 children, remain forcibly displaced at the hands of the parties in the Syrian civil war. The Assad regime forces were deemed responsible for over 85 percent of the total number.

An 11-day sweeping rebel offensive by anti-government armed groups brought a five-decade-long rule of the Assad family in Syria to an end on December 8. Thousands held in the regime’s prisons were set free by the rebels, including those held at the notorious al-Khatib prison.