This archive report was first published on 18 June 2020.
Published on June 18, 2020, a complaint was filed in Germany against senior Syrian government officials by four women and three men who were victims or witnesses of torture and sexual violence in Syrian detention facilities.
The victims, held in various detention centres in Damascus, Aleppo, and Hama between April 2011 and August 2013, suffered electrical shocks to the genitals, forced abortion, and rape, according to the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).
The plaintiffs named nine senior Syrian government and air force intelligence officials, including Jamil Hassan, a former close associate of Assad and head of the air force intelligence services until 2019, in their complaint.
Hassan is already the subject of an international arrest warrant from Germany and France on suspicion of crimes against humanity.
Sexual and gender-based violence in Syrian detention facilities 'were and continue to be part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population' since the Syrian war started in 2011, according to the ECCHR.
'I want the international community and judicial authorities to know what we went through just because we are women,' one of the victims was cited as saying in a press release.
Germany's federal prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe confirmed it had received the complaint on Wednesday.
