Syrian defendant Eyad Al Gharib hides himself under his hood during his trial in Germany. AFP
Syrian defendant Eyad Al Gharib hides himself under his hood during his trial in Germany. AFP
Syrian defendant Eyad Al Gharib hides himself under his hood during his trial in Germany. AFP
Syrian defendant Eyad Al Gharib hides himself under his hood during his trial in Germany. AFP

Activists protest outside Syrian torture trial in Germany


Jamie Prentis
  • English
  • Arabic

Human rights activists gathered outside a court in Koblenz, Germany, to protest against the Assad regime in the latest stage of the trial of two men accused of torturing prisoners in Syrian jails.

Anwar Raslan, 57, and fellow accused, Eyad Al Gharib, 43, are being tried on the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows a foreign country to prosecute crimes against humanity. They deny the charges.

Activists from The Syria Campaign, Families for Freedom and Adopt a Revolution held banners in front of the court. One described Bashar Al Assad’s Syria as a “torture state” while another said the country was not safe.

Dozens of photographs of people the regime is accused of abducting or killing were held in front of the court.

Wafa Mustafa, a Syrian activist, was among those there.

"I'm going with a picture of my dad who completed 2,522 days in Assad detention centres. This trial is one step in our very long and difficult journey towards justice," he said.
"First of all: release the detainees!" he added.

The court on Wednesday focused on whether an interview conducted with Mr Al Gharib by police in August 2018 is admissible in the current trial, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, which attended the trial, reported.

The human rights organisation is supporting plaintiffs in the case.

The rights centre reported that in August 2018 police “questioned Eyad A as a witness in structural investigations about Syria, not as a suspect in a criminal investigation”.

Mr Raslan, who was a colonel in the Assad regime intelligence services, is accused of overseeing the murder of 58 people and torture of 4,000 others at the Al Khatib detention centre in Damascus in 2011 and 2012.

Mr Al Gharib was allegedly tasked with arresting anti-government protesters and delivering them to a notorious jail known as Branch 251 or to Al Khatib, which was run by Mr Raslan.

Both fled Syria in 2013 and were spotted by their alleged victims in Germany as they sought asylum.

The plaintiffs in the case are expected to begin giving evidence next month.

Anwar Raslan is being tried on the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows a foreign country to prosecute crimes against humanity. AFP
Anwar Raslan is being tried on the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows a foreign country to prosecute crimes against humanity. AFP
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The Cairo Statement

 1: Commit to countering all types of terrorism and extremism in all their manifestations

2: Denounce violence and the rhetoric of hatred

3: Adhere to the full compliance with the Riyadh accord of 2014 and the subsequent meeting and executive procedures approved in 2014 by the GCC  

4: Comply with all recommendations of the Summit between the US and Muslim countries held in May 2017 in Saudi Arabia.

5: Refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of countries and of supporting rogue entities.

6: Carry out the responsibility of all the countries with the international community to counter all manifestations of extremism and terrorism that threaten international peace and security

In numbers: China in Dubai

The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000

Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000

Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000

Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000

Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent

At a glance

Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.

 

Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year

 

Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month

 

Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30 

 

Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse

 

Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth

 

Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances

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Florence and the Machine – High as Hope
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The burning issue

The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.

Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins

Read part two: how climate change drove the race for an alternative 

Read part one: how cars came to the UAE

Opening Rugby Championship fixtures: Games can be watched on OSN Sports
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Defence review at a glance

• Increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 but given “turbulent times it may be necessary to go faster”

• Prioritise a shift towards working with AI and autonomous systems

• Invest in the resilience of military space systems.

• Number of active reserves should be increased by 20%

• More F-35 fighter jets required in the next decade

• New “hybrid Navy” with AUKUS submarines and autonomous vessels

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The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. 
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

Innotech Profile

Date started: 2013

Founder/CEO: Othman Al Mandhari

Based: Muscat, Oman

Sector: Additive manufacturing, 3D printing technologies

Size: 15 full-time employees

Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing 

Investors: Oman Technology Fund from 2017 to 2019, exited through an agreement with a new investor to secure new funding that it under negotiation right now. 

Karwaan

Producer: Ronnie Screwvala

Director: Akarsh Khurana

Starring: Irrfan Khan, Dulquer Salmaan, Mithila Palkar

Rating: 4/5

Global state-owned investor ranking by size

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China

3.

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4.

Japan

5

Norway

6.

Canada

7.

Singapore

8.

Australia

9.

Saudi Arabia

10.

South Korea

How Alia's experiment will help humans get to Mars

Alia’s winning experiment examined how genes might change under the stresses caused by being in space, such as cosmic radiation and microgravity.

Her samples were placed in a machine on board the International Space Station. called a miniPCR thermal cycler, which can copy DNA multiple times.

After the samples were examined on return to Earth, scientists were able to successfully detect changes caused by being in space in the way DNA transmits instructions through proteins and other molecules in living organisms.

Although Alia’s samples were taken from nematode worms, the results have much bigger long term applications, especially for human space flight and long term missions, such as to Mars.

It also means that the first DNA experiments using human genomes can now be carried out on the ISS.

 

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Job: Coder, website designer and chief executive, Trinet solutions

School: Year 8 pupil at Elite English School in Abu Hail, Deira

Role Models: Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk

Dream City: San Francisco

Hometown: Dubai

City of birth: Thiruvilla, Kerala