
Assad's regime on trial for crimes against humanity. The court is about to rule on most senior official yet
CNN
A German court is set to rule on the case of a Syrian colonel accused of committing crimes against humanity on Thursday, in the first-ever torture trial against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Anwar Raslan, a senior regime official, headed the investigation unit at a notorious Damascus detention center known as Branch 251. He is charged with complicity in at least 4,000 cases of torture, dozens of murders and three cases of sexual assault and rape.
His co-defendant, Eyad al-Gharib, a junior officer who also served in the facility, was convicted in February 2021 for aiding and abetting torture and deprivation of liberty as crimes against humanity. He is serving a four-and-a-half-year sentence.

The two men killed as they floated holding onto their capsized boat in a secondary strike against a suspected drug vessel in early September did not appear to have radio or other communications devices, the top military official overseeing the strike told lawmakers on Thursday, according to two sources with direct knowledge of his congressional briefings.












