Berlin warns Assad officials not to come to Germany

German ministers on Sunday said supporters of fallen president Bashar al-Assad's government would face justice in Germany if they fled to the country after the toppling of the Syrian strongman.

"We will hold all of the regime's henchmen to account for their terrible crimes with the full force of the law," Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the weekly Bild am Sonntag.

"If henchmen of Assad's terror regime try to flee to Germany, they must know that hardly any other state pursues their crimes as harshly as Germany," Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told the same publication.

"No one who has taken part in atrocities is safe from prosecution here," Faeser added.

"It is now particularly important for international security authorities and intelligence services to work together as closely as possible," Baerbock said.

Germany has convicted several Assad government officials under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows for trials regardless of where the offences were committed.

In January 2022, Germany jailed former Syrian colonel Anwar Raslan for life in the first global trial over state-sponsored torture in Syrian prisons.

A year later in February 2023 in Berlin, a member of a government militia arrested in Germany in 2021 also received a life sentence for war crimes.

A Syrian doctor, Alaa Moussa, is also currently on trial in Frankfurt accused of torture, murder and crimes against humanity in military hospitals.

German authorities have also gone after people who were not part of Assad's government for crimes committed in Syria since the civil war began in 2011.

In December 2023, German prosecutors charged two Syrians with war crimes committed around Damascus as part of the Islamic State group.

Germany is home to Europe's largest Syrian diaspora, having taken in nearly a million people from the war-ravaged country.