{"id":158606,"date":"2026-04-30T10:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/?p=158606"},"modified":"2026-04-30T10:59:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:59:54","slug":"how-to-deal-with-alleged-perpetrators-who-changed-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/158606-how-to-deal-with-alleged-perpetrators-who-changed-side.html","title":{"rendered":"How to deal with alleged perpetrators who changed side?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The trial of Syrian former prison guard Fahd Al-Hamid opened in Germany on April 27. And as in several other universal jurisdiction trials, it poses the question whether those who defected and shared crucial information should face prosecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Fifteen years ago, two men in their thirties sat together in the cafeteria of secret service branch 251 in Damascus. They were old friends, who knew each other from a little town in the governorate of Deir az-Zor in Eastern Syria. Both came from poor farmers\u2019 families, and both enrolled in the state security apparatus after middle school, when they could not afford to continue their education. They stayed in touch over the years, as they each got married, had children and built their careers. For ten years, both of them worked as sports trainers for new recruits. In 2006, they were transferred to one of the most notorious investigation branches in Damascus: branch 251, also known as Al-Khatib branch. They did not want the job, they said later, but they were forced to take it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the revolution started in 2011, one of them was deployed in a sort of riot team that raided demonstrations and arrested protesters. The other was a guard in the Al-Khatib branch\u2019s prison. Thousands of political prisoners were tortured there and many killed. During this time, the two friends stayed in touch. Once in a while they met in the branch\u2019s cafeteria, where they probably had a cup of tea or coffee together and chatted, while trying to ignore the screams that came from the underground cells and could be heard all across the yard, as one of them later testified. Asked if they ever talked about those screams, he would answer: \u201cNo, that was nothing unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two men had no idea that years later, they would end up in prison themselves \u2013 not in Syria, though, but thousands of kilometers away in Western Germany. Both would be accused of committing or aiding crimes against humanity during their time as employees of the Assad regime. One of them is called Eyad Al-Gharib. In 2021, the Higher Regional Court of Koblenz convicted him to four and a half years in prison<\/a> for aiding and abetting crimes against humanity in the form of torture and severe deprivation of liberty. He had arrested protesters and taken them to branch 251, knowing that they would be tortured there. He was released in 2025 after completing his sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other is former prison guard Fahd Al-Hamid, whose trial began on Monday, April 27, 2026, at the same court. He might be facing a much higher sentence, as the state prosecution charged him with seventy cases of murder, as well as crimes against humanity involving killings, torture, and unlawful detention. Both trials are based on the principle of universal jurisdiction<\/a> that allows states to prosecute the gravest crimes against international law even when there is no direct link to the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of a defector<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Germany has been the most active in prosecuting the crimes of the former Assad regime, and Fahd Al-Hamid\u2019s trial is just the latest in a long series<\/a>. His case raises questions that have come up with many of these cases over the past years: How to deal with defectors who worked for an oppressive regime, but changed sides and supported the opposition?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al-Hamid defected in 2012 and fled to Turkey with his family. Officers who defected in the early years of the revolution usually did so out of opposition to the regime and the refusal to participate in the mass torture and killing of civilians. When he defected, Al-Hamid smuggled out internal documents that he later shared with the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM), a UN body established in 2016 to collect and analyze evidence of crimes in Syria since 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former prison guard also went public in an interview with Aljazeera<\/a> in 2016 where he talked about what he called \u201cthe crimes of the regime\u201d. He described torture methods and revealed that the dead bodies of detainees from branch 251 were taken to Harasta Military Hospital first and then buried in mass graves. He explained how the forensic doctors forged death certificates that recorded heart attacks as the cause of death and claimed that attempts to revive the patient were made but remained unsuccessful. This type of certificate has since been seen in many different leaks and investigations. At the same time, it has become evident that, in reality, thousands of detainees died from torture, starvation and diseases due to inhumane prison conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the interview, the Aljazeera journalist asked Al-Hamid directly if he participated in the torture of detainees. Al-Hamid said that as a Sunni he was not fully trusted, and that only specialized officers were tasked with torturing and killing inmates. Although it is true that Alawite officers were often seen as more loyal by the regime, it is well documented that Sunni officers participated in the abuse of detainees. When asked why he did not try to stop the abuse, Al-Hamid answered: \u201cIf you utter one word, you will end up in prison yourself.\u201d And, indeed, he was once imprisoned for two months, as a punishment for empathizing with the prisoners, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\t

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\u201cWhen you defect, you are endangering yourself\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Al-Hamid lived in Turkey with his wife and six children until 2023. But he has been known to the German authorities for many years. In the so-called Al-Khatib trial against his friend Al-Gharib and both their superior Anwar Raslan<\/a>, his name was mentioned several times. Al-Gharib had told the police about their meetings in the cafeteria, and German authorities had received information on Al-Hamid from the IIIM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, witness and joint plaintiff Hassan Mahmoud testified during the Al-Khatib trial in October 2020 that he contacted Al-Hamid in 2016 after having seen his interview on Aljazeera. \u201cOn TV he said he had the names of people who died in branch 251. I contacted him and asked him to look for my brother.\u201d Mahmoud\u2019s brother Hayan had been missing since 2012. He is one of thousands who disappeared in the regime\u2019s prison cells and never returned. Al-Hamid had taken documents with him when he defected. At the request of Mahmoud, he went through a list of deceased detainees and was able to confirm his brother\u2019s death. The list was shown as evidence in the Koblenz courtroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the witness, Al-Hamid told him during their conversation that \u201cafter someone defects, whatever he did before should be forgotten\u201d. A few years later, he mentioned something similar to the author of this article, who interviewed him after the conviction of his friend Al-Gharib at the beginning of 2021. He said that \u201cthis judgement criminalizes anyone who defects and testifies against the regime\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al-Hamid was also interviewed in a podcast<\/a> that accompanied the Al-Khatib trial. There, he said: \u201cThis is a case of injustice against Eyad Al-Gharib. He was one of the first to defect, and he helped people. He did not agree to be part of this killing machine, and he suffered for it. Had he been captured while defecting or before reaching safety, he would have been executed. When you defect, you are endangering yourself, your life, your children, and your family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heroes or self-incriminating perpetrators?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What he said back then in defense of his friend sounds more personal now that he himself is on the dock. On the first days of his trial, he remained silent. But from all the statements he made over the past years, it is clear that he deemed himself and other defectors on the right side of history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And indeed, defectors were celebrated as heroes in the early years of the Syrian revolution. Their changing sides was important at the time to weaken the regime\u2019s power and to provide information from inside the system to the outside: documents, names of detainees, details about the regime\u2019s crimes. Testimonies and documents from defectors have played a role in all of the universal jurisdiction trials. But defectors have also incriminated themselves while sharing such information in several cases, among them Al-Gharib and Raslan<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same happened in 2023 in a universal jurisdiction trial that dealt with the former Gambian regime<\/a> and a militia member turned whistleblower. These trials have posed the question<\/a>, whether military and secret service members will be discouraged to defect and to share crucial information, if they risk prosecution. At the same time, many Syrians have argued that crimes of the past cannot be forgiven, just because someone changed sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What remains unclear is why Al-Hamid decided to move to Germany with his family in 2023, joining his eldest son through family reunification. After all, he had seen what happened to his friend Al-Gharib and he knew that he himself had a similar past that he had talked about openly more than once. While he denied participating in torture in the public interviews or to the IIIM, he must have revealed his role at some point \u2013 probably after 2023, since it is unlikely that the German authorities would have approved his family reunification request, if they had already been investigating against him. Trial dates have been scheduled weekly until July.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Recommended reading<\/div>\r\n\t\t\t
\"First<\/div><\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\u201cToday marks the beginning of the first transitional justice trial in Syria\u201d\r\n\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The trial of Syrian former prison guard Fahd Al-Hamid opened in Germany on April 27. And as in several other universal jurisdiction trials, it poses the question whether those who defected and shared crucial information should face prosecution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":158601,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2801],"tags":[2693,2640],"ji_location":[2239,2499],"class_list":["post-158606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-universal-jurisdiction","tag-al-khatib-en","tag-torture-en","ji_location-germany","ji_location-syria"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSyria: How to deal with alleged perpetrators who changed side?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The trial of Syrian former prison guard Fahd Al-Hamid opened in Germany on April 27. 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And as in several other universal jurisdiction trials, it poses the question whether those who defected and shared crucial information should face prosecution.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/158606-how-to-deal-with-alleged-perpetrators-who-changed-side.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/158606-how-to-deal-with-alleged-perpetrators-who-changed-side.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/158606-how-to-deal-with-alleged-perpetrators-who-changed-side.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/Syria_Branch-251-Al-Khatib-prison-cell_@Louai-Beshara-AFP.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/Syria_Branch-251-Al-Khatib-prison-cell_@Louai-Beshara-AFP.jpg","width":1200,"height":800,"caption":"Writings on the walls of a prison cell in the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate Branch 251, also known as Al-Khatib branch, in the capital Damascus on December 25, 2024. 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