Lawsuits in the Swedish courts against 25 Syrian security officers
Syrian opposition lawyer Anwar Al Bunni, head of the Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research, based in Germany, said that nine Syrians who were arrested in their country, filed last Thursday a suit against 25 officers in the Syrian security services, responsible for torture and enforced disappearance in four security branches in Syria.
Al Bunni said on Friday that his center, in cooperation with the Kaiser Group and the Syrian Center for Media Freedom, with the support of the European Center for the Constitution and Human Rights and the Organization of Civil Rights Defenders in Sweden, filed suit against these Syrian officers in Sweden, and should be used to prosecute war criminals and criminals against humanity, as he described.
Al Bunni stressed that these centers and others are continuing their work and to file lawsuits against Syrian security officials who participated or caused war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria.
On July 8, the first international arrest warrant was issued against Major General Jamil Hassan, director of the Air force Intelligence Directorate, from the German prosecutor, on charges of giving orders to commit massacres against Syrians according to the indictment.
In addition, arrest warrants were issued against three Syrian intelligence officials, including General Jamil Hassan, Director of the Air force Intelligence Directorate, Major General Ali Mamlouk, Director of the National Security, and the Head of the interrogation branch at the Air force Intelligence Branch, Major General Abdel Salam Mahmoud, for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The French and German claims were based on the archive of Caesar, an unidentified person allegedly served at the Syrian military police as photographer, who fled from Syria in July 2013 carrying 50,000 photographs of prisoners who died of hunger, disease and torture between 2011 and 2013.
The United States and a number of European countries are based on the testimony of this person and the photographs allegedly taken in Syria in issuing arrest warrants and sanctions against Syrian security officials.