Mahmoud A. is one of five men accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Germany\u2019s latest universal jurisdiction<\/a> trial dealing with Syria. The Higher Regional Court of Koblenz, known for its landmark trial<\/a> against two former Syrian intelligence officers in 2020-2022, has once again become the stage for prosecuting major crimes of the Assad regime and its allied militias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using the principle of universal jurisdiction, German authorities can prosecute grave international crimes committed in Syria, even when there is no direct link to Germany \u2013 and they have on numerous occasions over the past years. But this trial is different. It is the first to commence after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024. And it is the first trial ever to indict starvation as a war crime \u2013 a step seen by some as a turning point in the prosecution of an especially cruel yet long neglected offence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than ten years after the alleged crime took place, Mahmoud A. does not resemble the bulky tattooed militia man he was in 2014, according to some photos<\/a> on the internet. He is handcuffed and pushed into the Koblenz courtroom in a wheelchair. In the public gallery, a woman jumps up and waves to him, only to be reprimanded by a security guard: communication with the defendants is prohibited. \u201cI am just saying hello,\u201d she says, smiling apologetically. \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen each other for a whole year.\u201d On this opening day on November 19th<\/sup>, friends and family of the defendants occupy more than half of the wooden benches in the courtroom. As Mahmoud A.\u2019s four co-defendants shuffle in one by one with shackled hands and feet, their loved one\u2019s sob, smile, wave, or gesture for them to stay calm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The list of accusations against them is long. In 2012, Mahmoud A., Wael S., Sameer S., and Jihad A. allegedly joined the Palestinian militia \u201cFree Palestine Movement\u201d that cooperated with the Assad regime to quash anti-government protests in Yarmouk and enforce the siege of the neighbourhood from 2012 onwards. The fifth defendant, Mazhar J., is said to have been a secret service officer for the Palestine Branch, where \u201cpeople who had mostly been arbitrarily arrested were tortured and held in life-threatening conditions, sometimes for several years.\u201d A significant number of prisoners died, read the indictment, \u201cas a result of torture and detention conditions.\u201d Mazhar J. was allegedly responsible for the arrest and mistreatment of civilians in the secret service branches, as well as the violent oppression of the inhabitants of Yarmouk.<\/p>\n\n\n\t One of the main incidents described by the prosecutors is a demonstration that took place in Yarmouk after Friday prayers on July 13, 2012. The demonstration grew larger as it moved North on Palestine Street, where it was confronted by security forces, among them four of the defendants. \u201cUnexpectedly, several people, including the defendants, opened fire deliberately on the demonstrators. Three people were killed as a result of these shots, among them Iyas Fahad, who was 21 at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the mention of the victim, a tall man with curly hair and a tired face, started crying quietly. Accompanied by his lawyers, he sat on the left side of the courtroom facing the defendants. He is the father of Iyas Fahad, and has joined the proceedings as a plaintiff. According to the indictment, the defendants harassed him in the days after his son was killed. The regime wanted him to accept a death certificate with a fake cause of death, but he refused. \u201cYou are playing with your life,\u201d they allegedly said to him. \u201cIsn\u2019t it enough that you lost one son? Do you want to lose another?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to this incident and the abuse of the two women at the checkpoint, further incidents are mentioned concerning one or several of the defendants: shooting at protesters, beating and arbitrarily arresting civilians at checkpoints, sending them to secret service branches where they later died. Samir S.\u2019s defence lawyer read a lengthy motion demanding the court to drop the charges against his client as he had never owned a weapon or been part of any militia. The other defendants and their counsels have not commented on the accusations yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the indictment, Moafak Doua<\/a>, the Syrian-Palestinian fighter convicted to life imprisonment in Berlin in February 2023, was also involved in several of the crimes. Another man, Mahmoud Sweidan, allegedly gave the orders in some of the cases. He later migrated to Sweden, where he was arrested last year at the same time as the Koblenz defendants, and is currently standing trial<\/a> for suspected war crimes in Yarmouk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The situation in Yarmouk<\/a> that led to Palestinian militias killing Palestinian civilians on behalf of Assad is not an easy one to understand. While the Palestinian Syrian community is often depicted as a homogenous group, there were in fact many different groups with different positions toward the revolution that changed over time. Their stances were shaped by various factors, among them the Assad regime\u2019s longtime meddling with the Palestinian cause that divided Palestinian factions into those it supported and those it antagonized; as well as grievances with Palestinian militias that controlled the camps on behalf of the Assad regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011, Syria was home to around 560.000 Palestinians, one third of which lived in Yarmouk. Most of them came after the Nakba, the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland during the foundation of the Israeli state, or after the Six-Day-War in 1967. Syria was one of the most hospitable countries at the time, treating Palestinians like citizens by giving them most of the same rights as Syrians. Refugee camps were not marginalized ghettos, but, like Yarmouk, became integral parts of the Syrian capital and key commercial centres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, not much remains of the once vibrant neighbourhood of Yarmouk. As one of the most fought over areas in the Syrian war, the regime\u2019s airstrikes have reduced the majority of its buildings to grey concrete skeletons or piles of rubble. At the beginning of the uprising in 2011, many Palestinian Syrians were cautious about getting involved. But Yarmouk quickly became a destination for displaced Syrians from other areas, taking in an estimated tens to hundreds of thousands of newcomers. It was also somewhat of a buffer zone between central Damascus and the southern suburbs where rebel groups were quickly gaining strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yarmouk was often described by rebel leaders as the \u201clungs\u201d through which they could breathe. The injured were treated there, families of fighters found shelter, and local youth sometimes helped with smuggling arms and ammunition. While local leaders were pressing for Yarmouk to remain neutral, new ranks of protesters soon formed in reaction to the regime\u2019s repression in the camp and on its borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In July 2012, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), an anti-Assad armed group, attacked central Damascus from the southern suburbs bordering on Yarmouk, and just a few months later, regime airstrikes on Yarmouk began. The neighbourhood was quickly seized by the oppositional forces, which prompted the Assad regime and its loyal militias to launch what would become one of its first sieges \u2013 and its most brutal one. Over the following three years, hundreds died of hunger. Survivors shockingly described how people were forced to eat cats and dogs or killed by snipers while trying to forage for food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was against this backdrop that the indictment in Koblenz was presented. \u201cWhile residents were initially able to leave or enter the district under strict reprisals, it was completely sealed off from July 2013 onwards.\u201d The prosecutors said that the Syrian militias \u201cFree Palestine Movement\u201d and \u201cPFLP-GC\u201d, of which four defendants were allegedly members, participated in the siege. \u201cIt was no longer possible to buy food and medicine. By then, at the latest, the humanitarian situation was catastrophic.\u201d While the Syrian regime allowed the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) to deliver humanitarian aid to Yarmouk at the beginning of 2014, residents were forced to collect the aid in the regime controlled North of Yarmouk, \u201cwhere they risked being subjected to violence. Nevertheless, in order to escape starvation for themselves and their families, many people went there on the days of distribution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nA pro-Assad Palestinian militia<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou are playing with your life\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Understanding Yarmouk<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Starvation](\"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/Syria_Yarmouk-graffiti-kneel-or-starve.jpg\")
Starvation as a war crime<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Crime](\"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/Palestine_starvation-food-rations_@Said-Khatib-AFP-540x360.jpg\")
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