Alaa Mousa, a former Syrian military doctor, was found guilty on June 16th, 2025, of war crimes and crimes against humanity in a German court after being accused of torturing detainees in government hospitals during the Syrian Civil War in 2011 and 2012. The verdict, delivered by the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt, represented the expansion of universal jurisdiction prosecutions in Europe since the conflict began more than a decade ago.
The case follows Germany’s landmark Koblenz trial, which in 2022 delivered the world’s first conviction of a senior Assad regime official for crimes against humanity under universal jurisdiction. That ruling established Germany as a leader in efforts to prosecute atrocities committed outside its borders. Since then, prosecutors have initiated several additional cases tied to Syria, including one related to the siege of the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus.
Analysts say these efforts show how Germany’s courts are expanding the frontiers of international accountability at a time when the International Criminal Court (ICC) remains politically constrained.
“A crime is a crime, even if the criminal doesn’t live in the country where it was committed,” said Princeton anthropologist John Borneman, who has written extensively on law and justice in Germany and Lebanon. “The system of universal jurisdiction is actually an advance in legal process. When domestic courts fail, others should step in; that’s progress, not overreach.”
Since 2011, Syrian activists, survivors, and legal NGOs have documented tens of thousands of cases of torture and disappearance under the Assad regime. But with Syria never having joined the ICC and Russia’s UN Security Council veto blocking an international war crimes trial, survivors have increasingly turned to national courts in Europe as their only legal recourse.
Germany, which received over 700,000 Syrian refugees during the so-called “long summer of 2015,” has become the epicenter of these prosecutions. Since the Koblenz trial, there have been almost 50 trials on Syria in European courts. Many refugees were professionals, doctors, engineers, and lawyers who possessed the networks and education to organize cases and provide testimony. That social dynamic, Borneman noted, helped Germany become uniquely positioned to take up Syrian claims. “The Syrians who fled were often middle or upper-middle class,” he said. “They knew how to activate the justice system. They understood the importance of pursuing these prosecutions even from exile.”
Indeed, after moving to Germany in 2015 under a skilled-worker visa, Mousa was arrested in 2020 after being identified by witnesses who had recognized him among the Syrian diaspora.
For Dr. Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian-American physician and humanitarian who leads the NGO MedGlobal, Mousa’s conviction resonates deeply on ethical grounds.
“The first rule in medicine is to do no harm,” Sahloul said. “To have a physician participate in torture and killing is against everything our profession stands for… it brings back memories of Hitler’s doctors. Justice was delayed, but this verdict matters.”
Sahloul argued that the Assad regime’s systematic targeting of hospitals and medical workers in Syria, an early feature of the war, normalized attacks on healthcare in other conflicts, including Ukraine and Gaza. “Medical neutrality has been weaponized,” he said. “Holding perpetrators accountable is the only way to restore those norms. Otherwise, these conventions become ink on paper.”
While some critics question the fairness of trying lower-level perpetrators when senior regime figures remain untouchable, Sahloul said even symbolic cases have deterrent value. “You can’t try every officer or doctor,” he said. “But every conviction sends a message: there’s no impunity forever.”
Legal experts argue that Germany’s willingness to test the boundaries of jurisdiction reflects both its historical responsibility and its evolving identity. Since Nuremberg, Germany has embraced what Borneman calls a “ritual of accountability”; using law not only to punish, but to reaffirm moral order. “Trials like these,” he explained, “are secular rituals. They transform trauma into recognition. They tell victims: The world saw you.”
The Mousa case also illustrates how universal jurisdiction complements, and sometimes substitutes for, the ICC. Because the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute that created the court, and Syria has no domestic provision for universal jurisdiction, Europe remains the main venue for such prosecutions. As Borneman put it, “Sometimes, you can’t rely on your own country’s justice system. Political realities make it impossible. Universal jurisdiction gives victims another path.”
Sahloul believes that even incremental victories matter. “Justice is not only about punishment,” he said. “It’s about prevention. Every time a court rules that torture or starvation are crimes, wherever they happen, it strengthens the idea that law applies to everyone.”
Despite cases like this, the path toward comprehensive justice for Syria remains uncertain. Sahloul cautioned that the new Syrian regime, transitioning, institutionally weak, and beset by reconstruction challenges, is unlikely to take control of prosecutions soon. He suggested that national courts must continue to act until domestic systems are robust enough to assume responsibility.
Germany’s prosecutors have also opened a landmark case on the siege of Yarmouk, a Palestinian district of Damascus besieged from 2011 to 2015, where civilians were deliberately starved. The case charges former Syrian officials with using starvation as a weapon of war, a first under German law and potentially precedent-setting for future conflicts. As these cases continue to unfold, the real test lies ahead: can such trials catalyze broader accountability, inspire local justice in Syria, and hold future crimes to account?
