Spanish
A supposed former member of a militia loyal to Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, which collapsed last year, has been arrested this Tuesday in Berlin by order of an investigating judge of the German Federal Court of Justice on charges of having committed war crimes in his country.
According to the Attorney General's Office (GBA), the detainee, identified as 'Anwar S.', was the leader of one of the militias known as 'shabiha', which were used by the regime to suppress protest movements and intimidate the population so that they would not dare to rebel.
The militia in question was active in Aleppo, the country's second city.
There, between April 2011 and November 2011 - after the beginning of the uprising that would later lead to a civil war -, Anwar S. and his militia beat civilians with batons, metal bars and other similar objects on at least eight occasions, to disperse demonstrations or prevent them from forming, according to the GBA.
Some of the protesters attacked were handed over by the militia to the police or the secret services, who held them in custody for various periods of time and subjected them to ill-treatment and humiliation.
In one of the incidents, which occurred in the Saif al Dawla neighborhood, militiamen commanded by 'Anwar S.' injured a demonstrator so severely that he died shortly thereafter.
S., who has been accused of homicide, torture, and illegal detention by the prosecution in the form of crimes against humanity, will appear before the investigating judge tomorrow, who will decide on his possible entry into pre-trial detention.
According to the German newspaper Welt, the arrest took place in the Berlin district of Neukölln and videos are circulating on the internet in which S. can be identified beating protesters in Aleppo in 2011.
