A German prosecutor’s office has filed charges against a Syrian national on December 20, 2024, before the State Protection Senate of the Higher Regional Court in Düsseldorf. The accused is suspected of being a member of a terrorist organization abroad, according to the General Prosecutor’s office on Wednesday. In addition to this, he is accused of war crimes against property, aiding war crimes against individuals, crimes against humanity, and aiding in such crimes, as well as aiding in genocide.
The accused was arrested on April 11, 2024, and remains in pre-trial detention. In the indictment, it is stated that the defendant joined the “Islamic State” (IS) in Deir ez-Zor in the summer of 2014, at the latest, and took on a leadership position in the local security department. He allegedly played a central role in the IS’s forced takeover of real estate and the plundering of furniture, and was involved in the seizure of 13 properties, mostly private homes, on 13 occasions, according to the General Prosecutor’s office.
The accused is said to have ensured the accommodation of IS fighters in the seized houses, supplied them with food, and provided them with access to the properties. The IS allegedly used two of the buildings as a prison for kidnapped Yazidi women, who were subjected to sexual exploitation and abuse by IS fighters. This is said to have been an integral part of the IS’s goal of destroying the Yazidi religious community, and the defendant is accused of overseeing one of these prisons and allowing IS fighters access to it.
In the summer of 2014, the defendant allegedly recruited his 13-year-old nephew for the IS, who received military training and fought for the IS in Aleppo, according to the indictment.
The General Prosecutor’s office describes the Syrian regime as having resorted to increasingly brutal violence against critics in the country from the spring of 2011 onwards, aiming to suppress the protest movement and intimidate the population. By early 2012, the tensions in Syria had escalated into a large-scale civil war, with the Syrian state and armed opposition groups, including the foreign terrorist organization “Islamic State”, clashing.