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- What is the Yarmouk trial about, and why are there two trials in Germany and Sweden?
The Yarmouk trial involves eight suspects in Germany and Sweden who participated in the violent crackdown and killing of civilians in the predominantly Palestinian neighborhood of Yarmouk in Damascus, Syria between 2012 and 2014. The crackdowns took place in the context of a brutal months-long siege of Yarmouk, during which thousands of civilians were subject to starvation. The arrests of the eight suspects were part of a larger coordinated investigation by authorities in Germany and Sweden.
The two cases will proceed separately in domestic courts in Germany and Sweden under each state’s legal framework on universal jurisdiction. The principle of universal jurisdiction allows national courts to investigate and prosecute core international crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, committed on foreign territory by foreign nationals. ECCHR supports survivors of the crimes in Yarmouk to enable their participation in the proceedings in Germany as joint plaintiffs.
This Q&A focuses on the proceedings in Germany.
- Who are the perpetrators?
In Germany, the suspected perpetrators are four Syrian Palestinians, Jihad A., Mahmoud A., Sameer S., Wael S., who were allegedly affiliated with the “Free Palestine Movement” (FPM), an Assad-allied militia, and one Syrian national, Mahzar J., who was an alleged member of the Branch 235 of the Syrian military intelligence. At the time, the FPM exercised armed control over Yarmouk on behalf of the Assad regime and worked in close collaboration with the Syrian military intelligence.
In Sweden, three alleged FPM members were also arrested on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinian and Syrian civilians in Yarmouk, pursuant to a coordinated investigation.
- What happened in Yarmouk between 2011 and 2015?
Yarmouk, known as the “capital of the Palestinian diaspora,” was officially founded in the year 1957 as a refugee camp for Palestinian refugees who fled to Syria following the 1948 Nakba. In the years since, the camp became an integrated, vibrant working-class district in south Damascus, housing some 150,000 Palestinian refugees. When the Syrian revolution began in March 2011, peaceful demonstrations broke out in Yarmouk and were violently suppressed by the Syrian regime and allied militias who held control over the camp. Many Syrians fleeing repression and fighting in surrounding areas, including armed opposition fighters, sought refuge in the camp.
As with all officially registered Palestinian camps in Syria and also in Lebanon, security and policing in Yarmouk were largely in the hands of Palestinian militias. These militias were formally autonomous in Syria, but in fact directly subordinate to the Syrian security forces. In Yarmouk, this role was assumed by the PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command), a political-military organization led by Ahmad Jibril, a former Syrian officer, as well as by the Free Palestine Movement (FPM). Originally lightly armed and mainly carrying out community work in the camp, this organization transformed into a pro-regime armed militia at the start of the civil war.
Both groups took on security tasks in Yarmouk and acted as henchmen for the Syrian state security forces. At their checkpoints within the camp, people were repeatedly arrested arbitrarily and handed over to the secret service, where they were detained without charge and tortured. Members of both organizations, who were considered to be agents of the regime and its secret services, also repeatedly attacked the population in connection with the distribution of food.
As a result, Syrian regime forces and allied militias, including the FPM, besieged Yarmouk beginning December 2012. In July 2013, a total siege was imposed on the population, trapping the remaining approximately 20,000 civilians and cutting them off from all food, medicine and humanitarian aid. Residents resorted to eating grass and scavenging for food. By mid-March 2014, at least 130 people had died from starvation and dehydration, according to the Palestinian League for Human Rights-Syria (PLHR-S). The then UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, said that Yarmouk was beginning to resemble a “death camp.” Amidst the horror of the situation in Syria, he continued, the camp was “the deepest hell.”
The UNRWA was finally permitted to enter Yarmouk in January 2014, where photos of thousands of emaciated residents standing in line for food garnered international attention. The regime almost completely destroyed the camp with barrel bombs in 2015. By 2018, a final regime offensive to take over the camp left most of the buildings and infrastructure destroyed and depopulated.
“Siege, starve, surrender,” became a strategy of warfare by the Assad regime against hundreds of thousands of civilians residing in opposition-held areas in Syria.
- What is the trial about? What are the charges?
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office indicted the four suspected members of the Syrian militia “Free Palestine Movement” (FPM) and one suspected Syrian secret service agent for war crimes and crimes against humanity. They are suspected – in several instances – of murdering and attempting to murder civilians, and also of crimes against humanity and war crimes through killing and attempted killing. Additionally, they face accusations of crimes against humanity and war crimes in the form of torture. All defendants, except one, are also accused of crimes against humanity by depriving individuals of their liberty. One defendant is furthermore accused of war crimes involving the use of prohibited methods of warfare.
According to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, they took part in the violent suppression of a peaceful demonstration against the Syrian regime on 13 July 2012. Subsequently, the population of Yarmouk was held under siege from December 2012 onwards. Furthermore, from mid‑2012 to 2014, the accused repeatedly physically abused and detained civilians at checkpoints set up by regime-aligned militias to control access to Yarmouk. One defendant allegedly struck civilians during the distribution of aid to prevent them from receiving food and contributed to the starve-out of the population. For the first time, German prosecutors have charged an individual with the war crime of starving civilians.
To date, no German court has investigated the systematic siege and starvation of the civilian population in Yarmouk. New proceedings should close this gap and legally address the brutal warfare waged against entire districts.
The five defendants were arrested in July 2024 on strong suspicion of crimes against humanity and have been in custody since then.
- Who are the victims? Are there joint plaintiffs participating in the trial?
During the investigation, the authorities questioned more than 50 witnesses. Those who have suffered personal harm because of one of the crimes charged (such as the killings) have legal standing as victims in the case and can participate in the case as joint plaintiffs (civil parties). ECCHR is supporting several joint plaintiffs, who are also represented by partner lawyers.
- Have the crimes in Yarmouk already been subject of a criminal trial before.
Yes, from 2022 until early 2023, a trial was held at the Higher Regional Court in Berlin against Moafak D for killing at least 4 people in a rocket-launcher attack in Yarmouk in 2014. Moafak D was sentenced to a life-long prison sentence for having attacked a group of people, who were trying to receive a relief-aid package from UNRWA, with an anti-tank weapon as part of the FPM militia. The trial was focused on this one incident and was criticized for being restricted to a single crime and for not sufficiently addressing the systematic nature of the siege. ECCHR supported the two joint plaintiffs who took part in this trial and who were also represented by partner lawyers.
- How can the siege and starvation of civilians be prosecuted and proven in court?
Under Article 11 para. 1 no. 5 of the CCAIL, starvation can be charged as a war crime (use of prohibited methods of warfare) in German courts. In the indictment, the Federal Prosecutor chose a very restrictive application of this norm, charging only two incidents, in which one of the accused tried to interfere in the distribution of humanitarian aid by beating individuals seeking the support, as one form of the commission of the crime of starvation (“impeding relief supplies”).
- Are there other cases or precedents about the crime of starvation?
Siege and starvation of civilians as a method of warfare are prohibited by international law and constitute war crimes and can also amount to crimes against humanity. Currently, there is no German case law that addresses siege and starvation as war crimes or crimes against humanity. Establishing a finding of the siege and starvation of civilians as core international crimes in the Yarmouk case in Syria is instrumental in developing new precedents for future cases on such crimes in different contexts.
This is especially relevant and timely in the context of Israel’s ongoing blockade and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. In this situation, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants against high-level Israeli suspects, including for the crime of starvation. In the situations of Yemen and Sri Lanka a few years ago, no international crimes cases concerning starvation were opened domestically or at the ICC. Moreover, the connection between Yarmouk and Gaza is not only a legal one, but one physically embodied by Palestinian refugeedom: many Palestinian refugee survivors of the siege of Yarmouk have relatives living under the war and siege in Gaza, facing a very similar and prohibited method of warfare – the crime of starvation.
ECCHR is requesting the German Federal Prosecutor to open a structural investigation on international crimes being committed in Gaza – like the one on Syria – since 2023. Such an investigation could support the ICC’s casework with further evidence, especially on specific crimes such as starvation, and prepare Germany for situations in which a suspect of the crime is found in Germany, such as in the Yarmouk case. Such an approach would reduce double standards in international law and advance the establishment of more legal precedents in prosecuting a mass crime, often concerning thousands of people, like the crime of starvation.
- What legal means are available in Germany to prosecute international crimes in Syria?
The German Code of Crimes Against International Law (CCAIL), which entered into force in 2002 and was reformed in 2024, enables German courts to prosecute international crimes committed in Syria. Through the CCAIL, Germany adapted its national criminal code to the standards of international criminal law, in particular those established by the Rome Statute of the ICC.
The principle of universal jurisdiction enshrined in the CCAIL constitutes the legal basis for the prosecution of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes by German courts. According to the CCAIL, the Federal Public Prosecutor (GBA) can investigate international crimes, even if they were committed outside of Germany. This means that the jurisdiction of the courts is independent from the location of the crime, as well as from the nationality of its victim or perpetrator.
Since 2011, the Federal Public Prosecutor has been conducting several person-specific investigations into the crimes committed in Syria, as well as a structural investigation, which addresses larger clusters of crimes in the country beyond individual cases.
- How does the criminal complaint relate to the ECCHR’s previous work on Syria?
Over the last few years, ECCHR has worked to advance criminal accountability for perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria through the use of the legal principle of universal jurisdiction. Under universal jurisdiction, ECCHR filed criminal complaints alongside a network of Syrian partners, consisting in particular of victims and survivors, activists and lawyers in Germany, Austria, Sweden and Norway, and represented Syrian torture survivors in cases against Syrian regime officials in Germany. This resulted in the first worldwide trial on Syrian state torture, the so-called al-Khatib trial, in 2020, opening the door for subsequent cases involving war crimes and crimes against humanity. Most recently, in June 2025, a Syrian doctor was found guilty in Germany for war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the torture and killing of dissidents in a military hospital in Syria.
Importantly, ECCHR has also pursued criminal accountability for atrocities committed by other actors in Syria, including non-state armed factions in Afrin and corporate actors such as Lafarge.
- How will these proceedings be impacted by the fall of the regime in Syria, and what effect will they have on a possible Syrian transitional justice process?
To address the systematic and widespread human rights violations in light of the fall of the Assad regime, an expansive and complimentary legal strategy must be pursued against all perpetrators: former regime officials, allied militias, armed groups (including IS), transnational corporations, and states that intervened militarily in the conflict.
As Syrian society begins the quest for transitional justice, prospects for accountability have changed dramatically through discussions on the wide range of justice-options now available. These include national processes, ICC referrals, or the establishment of a hybrid tribunal. Already, the new Syrian government announced the establishment of two commissions for transitional justice and missing persons, with Syrian civil society organizations calling for a victim-led framework encompassing violations committed by all actors in Syria. Building the architecture for a future accountability process will take time as Syria rebuilds state institutions in tandem with Syrian civil society actors and survivors, as well as UN mechanisms such as the IIIM and IIMP.
In the interim, universal jurisdiction proceedings play an important role in filling the impunity gap by advancing ongoing investigations, identifying perpetrators who may have fled to Europe, and contributing to the trifecta of national, extra-national, and international mechanisms needed to address the magnitude of international crimes committed in Syria in the past 14 years.
Without justice for survivors in Syria, there will be no long-term peace or democratic transition. Legally addressing human rights crimes is indispensable to the four pillars of transitional justice – truth, justice, reparation, and non-recurrence. Criminal accountability remains a key demand by Syrian survivors and civil society, inseparable from other transitional justice demands including uncovering the fate of missing persons, truth-seeking efforts, survivor support, reparations, and memorialization. The Yarmouk trials in Germany and Sweden are an important pillar of this process, as they are not only addressing single incidents, but systematic crimes committed in a part of Syria’s capital Damascus over a period of three years.
- Are Syria and Germany cooperating in these proceedings at all?
So far, there is no cooperation between Syria and Germany in these proceedings. Despite the recent rekindling of diplomatic relations with the new Syrian government, there are still no mutual legal assistance agreements that would allow for bilateral cooperation in criminal investigations and prosecutions. There are also no extradition agreements between Germany and Syria that would allow for suspects to be extradited and tried in Syria. Such agreements are normally reciprocal and would therefore require, among other things, minimum standards of due process, international human rights obligations, and the codification of international crimes in Syrian law if suspects are to be tried for war crimes or crimes against humanity. The path towards the establishment of these agreements, a prerequisite to any formal cooperation, will take time as Syrian state institutions, particularly the judiciary, are rebuilt and any national or international accountability mechanism is formalized.
