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On January 13, the German court in the small town of Koblenz punished Anwar Raslan, a former Syrian intelligence officer, is jailed for life for crimes against humanity. The verdict will not do justice to all Syrians, but it is still an important achievement.
It was a day we would never see if it was unjustly arrested, interrogated and tortured at the Al-Khatib State Security Office in Damascus between 2011 and 2012. At the time he promised, more than 4,000 people were tortured there, at least 58 are believed to have been killed.
I was arrested twice: once in 2011 and then in 2012 at the Syrian Center for Freedom of the Media and Freedom of Expression, in support of freedom of expression after an attack. For the first time, I was taken to the al-Khatib state security branch –251. known as the branch – for interrogation, where I was secretly arrested, beaten and tortured. The second time, I was taken to an air force intelligence branch.
Back in Syria, we only dreamed that we would see one of the regime’s criminals in court for his crimes.
Although Anwar Raslan is just one of hundreds of members of the security and intelligence apparatus of Bashar al-Assad who is responsible for state-sponsored torture and other atrocities over the past 10 and a half years, his individual conviction has a broader meaning. It is a damn legal accusation against the entire Syrian regime.
Under international law, the very definition of crimes against humanity is that they are a widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population. This individual conviction provides detailed evidence of the regime’s atrocities at the mass level.
For any state that plans to re-establish relations with Al-Assad or force refugees to return to Syria, it is important to remind them what the Syrian regime is capable of doing.
However, part of me still has a broken heart. It is difficult to welcome the news when there are dozens of people less fortunate than me who are still forcibly missing, detained in the famous prisons of al-Assad. For them, justice is nowhere to be seen.
Nothing can really describe the fear of extinction in Syria. Syrian intelligence officials say they are “disappearing behind the sun.” The phrase means to live in darkness; to be exiled from life. Death is intense.
After being confined to a small dark place for a few days, you no longer know if it is night or day. Light and darkness are meaningless. It’s almost as if you don’t exist. You forget the little details of life: what the trees look like or what the flowers smell like.
After my release in 2015, I fled Syria in large part because of the panic I suffered from security and intelligence officials, including Raslan. I left Syria because I was afraid they would catch me again and I did not want my family to be persecuted by the endless uncertainties about my fate, always asking: is he dead or alive? Are they being tortured right now? Is his body hanging from a rope somewhere?
If Raslan had shown an ounce of remorse for the crimes he had committed against me, he would have forgiven me. However, in court, I felt that he was giving an air of arrogance and that he looked contemptuous in his eyes. He denied that there had been systematic torture in the Al-Khatibe branch, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
True Syrian justice can only be achieved when al-Assad, his members of the security forces and all members of the Syrian warlords and armed groups responsible for war crimes are held accountable.
When I decided to testify at this trial, I was not sure what role he would play in seeking justice. But I know that if I had another chance to tell a court, I would have jumped on the bandwagon. We hope that such a trial will push us further into the trial of Syrian war criminals and bring us one step closer to another future in Syria.
I have had the opportunity to see my torturer before the trial, an opportunity that so many other Syrians have been cruelly denied. I hope that this ruling will pave the way for greater justice for all Syrians.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial attitude of Al Jazeera.
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