Federal Prosecutor’s Office: Suspected members of a Syrian militia arrested

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office has arrested four suspected members of a Syrian militia and one suspected employee of the Syrian secret service. The Karlsruhe authority announced this. The arrested persons are strongly suspected of killing and attempted killing of civilians as crimes against humanity and war crimes. Four of them are also accused of torture.

The four suspected members are said to have joined the “Free Palestine Movement” (FPM) group in Syria in 2011 at the latest, which controlled a district in the capital Damascus on behalf of the Syrian regime, according to the statement from the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. The Yarmouk district emerged from a Palestinian refugee camp and was completely sealed off from July 2013.

The arrested men are said to have participated in the violent suppression of a peaceful demonstration against the Syrian government in 2012, among other things, and to have deliberately shot at demonstrators. At least six people were killed. They are also said to have physically abused civilians at checkpoints. “The victims were hit in the head with fists and rifle butts or kicked,” the highest German prosecutor’s office said.

Arrests in Germany and Sweden

The arrests on Wednesday were made in Berlin, in Frankenthal in the Palatinate and near Boizenburg in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The state criminal police offices in Berlin, Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia were also supported by the Federal Criminal Police Office and Europol. In Essen, the premises of another suspect, who is still at large, were also searched.

At the same time, three other people were arrested in Sweden. They are suspected of crimes against international law that were committed in Syria in 2012, the Swedish public prosecutor’s office announced. The authority did not provide any further details about the people arrested. However, information from the Attorney General revealed that there are three other suspected members of the FPM militia who are said to have participated in the suppression of the demonstration in July 2012, among other things.

Those arrested in Germany will now be brought before the investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice, who will issue them with the arrest warrant and decide on their remand. Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said the men “can expect to be charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes in Germany. I would like to thank all the state criminal investigation offices involved and our Swedish partners for their good cooperation.”