Germany charges Syrian doctor with crimes against humanity

A Syrian doctor has been charged in Germany with crimes against humanity for allegedly torturing people in military hospitals in Syria and killing one of them, German federal prosecutors said on Wednesday. 

The Federal Prosecutor's Office in Karlsruhe said in a written statement that Alla Mousa, who came to Germany in 2015 and practised medicine before he was arrested last year, is accused of 18 counts of torturing people in military hospitals in Homs and Damascus. The allegations include that Mousa tried to make people infertile. 

A federal indictment charged him with murder, severe bodily harm, attempted bodily harm and dangerous bodily harm, the statement said. 

Prosecutors said that after the beginning of the uprisings against Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2011, protesters were frequently arrested and tortured. 

Injured civilians who were thought to be members of the opposition were also taken to military hospitals where they were tortured and sometimes killed. 

Specifically, Mousa is accused of having poured alcohol over the genitals of a teenage boy and another man and setting fire to them with a cigarette lighter at military hospital No. 608 in Homs.  

He is also accused of torturing nine more people in the same hospital in 2011 by kicking and beating them with his fist or with medical instruments. 

The indictment also alleges that Mousa kicked and beat a jailed man who was suffering an epileptic seizure. A few days later, the doctor gave the man a medication and he subsequently died without the exact cause of death ever clearly being identified, German prosecutors said. 

The indictment lists other cases of alleged torture at the military hospital in Homs, including hanging people from the ceiling and beating them with a plastic baton, and pouring flammable liquids over the hand of one of them and burning it.  

Mousa also is accused of kicking another patient's open, infected wound, pouring disinfectant into it and setting it on fire. 

In one case in 2012, Mousa allegedly beat and kicked an inmate severely. When the man defended himself by kicking back, Mousa beat him to the ground with the help of a male nurse and shortly after administered an infusion with a toxic substance that killed the inmate, German prosecutors allege. 

In addition to the torture allegations at the military hospital in Homs, Mousa is also accused of abusing inmates at the military hospital Mezzeh No. 601 in Damascus between late 2011 and March 2012.