Former intelligence officer Eyad al-Gharib, 44, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison by a court in the German city of Koblenz to help crimes against humanity.
Gharib was convicted of accompanying the transport of 30 detained protesters, despite learning of the systematic torture in the prison to which the detainees were sent, according to prosecutors. Protesters were allegedly beaten on their way to jail.
Both Raslan and Gharib left the regime in late 2012.
Raslan, a senior high-ranking intelligence officer, is still on trial. He is accused of supervising the torture of at least 4,000 prisoners during the uprising in Syria. At least 58 of the prisoners died. Allegedly, rape and sexual assault occurred in at least one case.
The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been repeatedly accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the country’s nearly a decade-long war. But attempts to establish an international tribunal have been hampered by Russian and Chinese vetoes on the UN Security Council.
Syrian officials have repeatedly denied the allegations, insisting they target terrorists and not peaceful protesters.
“Today is an exceptional day in the lives of Syrians,” Amer Matar, a 33-year-old Syrian man who said he was tortured by Raslan, told CNN. “This is a very important message for us, as Syrians, that justice can really be achieved, even in a place as far away as Germany, even if it is partial, and for specific people.”
The Commission for International Justice and Accountability (ICJ), investigators who provided documentary evidence used by the prosecution, called Tuesday’s verdict “historic.”
“This is a historic verdict,” CIJA director Nerma Jelacic told CNN. “Not only because he is the first to convict a Syrian regime official for crimes against humanity, but also because he acknowledges that his crimes were part of a widespread and systematic attack orchestrated by the top bodies of the Assad regime.
“This is just the first of many other trials and research we support,” Jelacic added. “It’s been almost ten years since the Eyad A crimes. [al-Gharib] he was convicted of being committed in those early days of the uprising while the regime repressed protesters with bare arms. ”
Since 2012, the CIJA has collected evidence of the Syrian government’s alleged crimes from investigators known as “document hunters”. These are Syrians recruited and trained by former war crimes investigators and lawyers to take thousands of government documents out of Syrian war zones.
The human rights group Amnesty International urged more countries to follow Germany’s line. “We also call on states to follow the example of Germany in investigating and prosecuting people suspected of committing war crimes or other crimes under international law in Syria through their national courts under the principle of ‘universal jurisdiction,'” he said. Lynn Maalouf, deputy director of the organization for the Middle East and North Africa.
Syrian human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni, considered one of the driving forces behind the Koblenz trial, described the sentence as “a message to all criminals who still commit the most horrific crimes in Syria and to remember them.” that the time of impunity has passed and there is no safe place to flee. ”
CNN’s Jomana Karadsheh and Eyad Kourdi contributed to this report.