ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Germany’s federal prosecutor on Monday charged a prison guard at an infamous detention and torture center during former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s era with crimes against humanity and murder, saying the suspect participated in over 100 interrogations where prisoners were severely abused. 

The suspect, identified as Fahad A., “is sufficiently suspected of killing, torture, and deprivation of liberty as crimes against humanity,” the federal prosecutor said in a statement, adding, “he is also charged with murder.”

Fahad allegedly worked as a guard at the infamous al-Khatib Department (Department 251), a prison operated by the Syrian intelligence services in central Damascus between the end of April 2011 and mid-April 2012, according to the statement.

The suspect participated in over 100 interrogations where prisoners were severely abused with, among other things, electric shocks and beatings with cables.

“On the orders of his superiors, the accused also tormented detainees at night, for example, by suspending them from the ceiling, dousing them with cold water, or forcing them to remain in uncomfortable positions,” the statement read.

“As a result of such abuse and the appalling prison conditions, at least 70 prisoners died,” it added.

The indictment outlined that from at least the end of April 2011, the Assad regime ordered widespread suppression activities against the opposition. The Syrian intelligence service played a crucial role in the campaigns. 

“To this end, actual or perceived opposition members were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and even killed throughout the country without any legal basis,” the prosecutor said. He was arrested on May 27. 

Throughout the country’s 14-year-long civil war, the Assad regime was responsible for myriad 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.

The most infamous detention center is the Saydnaya Prison, known as a “human slaughterhouse,” where daily executions took place. Survivors describe enduring torture, humiliation, starvation, and medical neglect in their testimonies.

An 11-day sweeping offensive by a group of rebels spearheaded by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led by now President Ahmed al-Sharaa brought the five-decade rule of the Assad family to an end on December 8, 2024.

Thousands held in the former regime’s prisons were set free, including those held at the notorious al-Khatib prison.