Muwafaq Dawa Abu Aker, who holds Palestinian and Syrian citizenship, was found guilty by a German court of war crime and murder for firing a grenade into a crowd of civilians waiting for food in Damascus in 2014. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Judgment background
- The 55-year-old was arrested in 2021 in Berlin, where he was staying as a refugee. His trial began in August.
- The Central Court in the German capital concluded that on March 23, 2014, the accused fired a hand grenade from an anti-tank weapon at a crowd in the Yarmouk neighborhood of Damascus, killing four people and seriously wounding two others.
- She also said that he was a checkpoint commander for a Palestinian group, possibly the Free Palestine Movement, and on the day in question was also supposed to supervise the distribution of food parcels provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
- The court said the defendant acted out of revenge against civilians in the area after his 25-year-old nephew was killed two days earlier by gunfire from opponents of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
- The defendant was found guilty of a particularly serious war crime, as well as four counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder and bodily harm.
- The court also decided that he bore a particularly severe guilt, which means he would not be eligible for release after 15 years, as is usually the case in Germany.
The verdict can be appealed.
It is noteworthy that Germany’s application of the “universal jurisdiction” rule, which allows the prosecution of serious crimes committed abroad, led last year to the first conviction of a prominent Syrian official for crimes against humanity.
