Austrian court convicts ex-intelligence chief in Syria's Raqqa of torture

VIENNA, July 6 - An Austrian court on Monday convicted a former Syrian intelligence chief from Raqqa of offences including torture and sexual assault over the mistreatment of opponents of then‑leader Bashar al‑Assad more than a decade ago.

The case is one of the few in which a European country has asserted jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed by Syrian state agents. The month-long trial included testimony by more than a dozen victims, whom the court found suffered beatings, electrocutions or were doused in hot and cold water.

The primary defendant, identified only as Khaled al-H under Austrian privacy rules, was head of Syria's General Intelligence Directorate in the city of Raqqa from the uprising against Assad in 2011 until 2013, when the Free Syrian Army seized control of the city. He told the court he helped facilitate the takeover and fled the next day — a journey that eventually brought him to Austria, where he later applied for asylum.

He denied any knowledge of violence against people held in his agency's building or seeing an infamous torture device known as the "flying carpet" - a wooden board that victims would be fastened to with a hinge at waist level - that was found there after he fled.

The court ruled, however, that he knew of and was responsible for the mistreatment of prisoners in his custody.

"Of course you were actively aware," the presiding judge said, referring to beatings of new arrivals immediately after their arrest that the prosecution said took place in the building's courtyard.

The court in Vienna sentenced both him and a second defendant, Abu R, a former senior police official in Raqqa whom the prosecution said was nicknamed "the Angel of Death", to eight years in prison.

Only Khaled al-H was charged with torture but both men were found guilty of causing serious bodily harm, aggravated coercion and sexual assault. Both men pleaded not guilty. REUTERS