One woman's quest for bereaved Syrians to find justice in German court

Resident in Germany seeks accountability for Assad regime after losing five brothers in Syria

Yasmin Almashaan, who now lives in Germany as a refugee, has filed a criminal complaint to a German court alongside three other families. Photo: Yasmin Almashaan

Syrian mother Yasmin Almashaan finds little time for leisure in the bucolic East German town of Crimmitschau, where she lives as a refugee with her husband and children.

Her days are consumed by the fight for justice for her brothers who were killed in Syria by President Bashar Al Assad’s forces. On Monday, as head of the Caesar Families Association (CFA), she and three other bereaved Syrian refugees living in Europe filed a criminal complaint against five members of Assad’s secret services to a German court.

“My days are, in all honesty, dedicated to the association and the legal fight, empowering other members, and my children. I have very little time for socialising. I am still learning to improve myself and I attend workshops and training,” she told The National.

The four complainants have each lost a brother allegedly at the hands of Syria’s notorious prison and secret service officials, some of whom have already been convicted of crimes against humanity in Paris and the German city of Koblenz. Yet most remain free in Syria.

Ms Almashaan had six brothers. Five were killed by Assad’s forces and the youngest, Bachar, was kidnapped by ISIS in 2014. She lived under ISIS occupation of Deir Ezzor but left shortly after Bachar disappeared.

Another brother, Okba, died in a Syrian prison and is the victim named in the complaint.

Nothing will bring Ms Almashaan’s brothers back. Though she struggles to live with her loss, she finds strength in the opportunities for justice that are available to her in Germany. The CFA, which filed the complaint, comprises bereaved families of victims of the Assad regime.

In recent years, Syrians have used German and other European courts to convict high-ranking members of Assad’s secret services. The first major trial took place in Koblenz, where former intelligence official Anwar Raslan was sentenced to life in jail for crimes against humanity in 2022. His associate, Eyad Al Gharib, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for aiding and abetting war crimes in 2020. A Syrian doctor from Homs, known as Alaa M, is facing trial in Frankfurt on 18 counts of torture of detainees.

“It all started in Germany, in Koblenz, then in Frankfurt,” Ms Almashaan said. “Most of the associations working towards justice are here in Germany. Most of the witnesses [to the crimes of the secret services] are in Germany. Most of the families are here, or in Europe. There is no opportunity we would miss. Where there’s an opportunity that opens, we will go to it."

Yet since Ms Almashaan arrived in Germany, the country has seen a creeping hostility towards refugees, 1.5 million of whom are Syrians.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party whose members had previously lobbied Syria to “take back” refugees, won state elections for the first time in September. Its members had travelled to Damascus on an official visit in 2019 in efforts to convince the German public that Syria was safe for returns.

Meanwhile, the German government is reviewing plans to deport Syrian refugees who commit serious crimes, or those whose asylum applications have been rejected, after a fatal knife attack in the German town of Solingen in August. The chief suspect is a Syrian asylum seeker.

Ms Almashaan could sense a growing anger against refugees in the town where she lives in Saxony, another state where the AfD came close to winning in September. “When we first came, there were a few signs of discrimination, we would sometimes hear swear words on the street. But now it’s become worse, our children even feel it at school,” she said.

The news of possible deportations has left Ms Almashaan feeling confused and distressed. “There are voices from the right describing us [Syrians] as a crisis in their country. But we came here fleeing with our children."

The complaint by the CFA accuses five officers from Assad’s inner circle of torture, murder, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance and was filed to the Federal Public Prosecutor General of Karlsruhe. It draws on evidence from the Caesar files, more than 50,000 images smuggled by a military defector code-named Caesar, which have served as key evidence in trials and sanctions against the Assad regime.

Ms Almashaan was in a refugee camp in Turkey when she was contacted to identify a photo of Okba, who had been detained in Syria since 2011, from the Caesar documents. “Somebody tagged me in a Facebook post, so I got in touch with them. They showed me the photo of my brother. I knew it would take time to learn what had happened to him in prison. I never expected to discover he had been killed through a picture, in such a hideous way,” she said.

Ms Almashaan said seeing the photo left her with “mixed feelings” at the time. “I felt anger and shock,” she said. But she also felt relief and closure at the evidence of his death.

She hopes the complaint will serve as a step towards accountability and justice for the tens of thousands of Syrians who were detained and tortured by the Syrian regime. “The crimes against our loved ones have happened and continue to happen to tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Syrians,” she said. “I want justice for my siblings. I want justice for all Syrians.”

Two of the accused, former head of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Service, Jamil Hassan, and former intelligence chief, Ali Mamlouk, were convicted of crimes against humanity by Paris courts this year. The pair were tried in absentia and are still free, so they could face a retrial in the French capital should they be captured elsewhere in Europe.

“We welcome the convictions in Paris,” Helena Kruger, legal adviser to the European Centre for Constitutional Human Rights, which submitted the complaint with the CFA, told The National. But as it was in absentia, they are still living freely in Syria. We hope the new complaint will reinforce the demand of having them arrested."

Other members of Assad’s inner circle named in the complaint face charges in Europe for the first time. Abdel Fattah Qudsiyeh is deputy head of the National Security Bureau, Rafiq Shahadah also served as a military intelligence chief and Ghassan Jaoudat Ismail is Mr Hassan’s successor in the Syrian Air Force intelligence service.

Karslruhe prosecutors will now review the complaint and decide whether to proceed. Ms Kruger is hopeful the complaint will contribute to an ongoing German investigation into the Assad regime’s alleged war crimes.

The trials of Assad-linked officials in Europe are seen as a key driver of accountability by the Syrian opposition. Syria is not a member of the International Criminal Court, and Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council referral to the ICC.

Ms Kruger said continuing with the accusations was “essential for holistic justice”. She hopes the complaint will show that Syria is not safe for refugees' return and that German parties seeking to engage with the Syrian President should think again before doing so. “Assad is definitely not a partner we could talk to,” she said.

Ms Almashaan said seeking justice in Syria was unthinkable with the Assad regime still in power. “In Syria the regime is still there and in power. It practises the same arrests and enforced disappearances, crimes and perpetrations. It’s impossible to think of a court in Syria that would indict or judge these practices,” she said.

“Until there is a political change and a comprehensive reform that gets rid of the security services committing these crimes, it is impossible to think of any accountability in Syria."