📍 Breaking News: This article covers the latest developments. Stay informed with comprehensive coverage.
QAMISHLI, syria-seizes-massive-captagon-and-hashish-shipment-in-central-desert/" class="smart-internal-link" title="📰 Syria seizes massive captagon and hashish shipment in central desert">syria/" class="auto-internal-link">syria (North Press) – The Higher Regional Court in Koblenz, Germany, opened on Wednesday a landmark trial into crimes committed during the Assad regime’s siege of Yarmouk Camp, marking the first time a court has examined starvation as a method of warfare in Syria, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) declared. The German Federal Prosecutor has charged five suspects under universal jurisdiction: four alleged members of the pro-Assad regime Free Palestine Movement (FPM) and one alleged syrian/" class="auto-internal-link">syrian intelligence officer. They are accused of homicide, murder, torture, deprivation of liberty, and the use of prohibited methods of warfare. Prosecutors say the men were involved in suppressing a peaceful protest in Yarmouk on July 13, 2012, after which the district was placed under a devastating siege.
Residents of Yarmouk—once a vibrant Palestinian refugee camp—were cut off from food, medicine, and relief aid. The blockade became part of a wider strategy used by the Assad regime to force opposition-held areas into surrender. Eleven months after the fall of the regime, the case is considered the largest universal jurisdiction trial to date and a significant step for the Syrian transitional justice process. Ruham Hawash, ECCHR’s Syria Program Regional Manager, stated the trial represents an attempt to document a history suppressed by hostilities. “Yarmouk was not collateral damage but a deliberate project of destruction,” she stated.
Moreover, a previous 2023 ruling in Berlin convicted a pro-Assad militia member for crimes in Yarmouk but was criticized for not addressing the systematic nature of the siege. ECCHR says the emerging proceedings aim to close that gap. ECCHR’s Andreas Schüller said the case highlights the use of hunger as a weapon, drawing parallels with current conflicts such as Gaza. Germany has led efforts to prosecute Syrian war crimes under universal jurisdiction.
With Assad’s administration gone, rights groups say such cases will help shape future accountability mechanisms inside Syria. By Jwan Shekaki