German justice handed images of ‘torture by Assad regime’

BERLIN: More than 27,000 images of torture and killings allegedly perpetrated by the Assad regime in Syria have been handed to German prosecutors who are investigating possible abuses, a rights group said on Friday.

"The photos show the extent and the systematic nature of torture" under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said Wolfgang Kaleck, general secretary of the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).

The shots were taken by a photographer working for the Syrian military police, dubbed "Caesar", who fled his homeland in 2013 carrying 55,000 photographs showing bodies of people who had been tortured between 2011 and 2013.

The rights group said it had joined Caesar on Thursday in filing a criminal complaint with Germany’s federal prosecutor against senior officials from the Syrian intelligence service and military police over possible crimes against humanity and war crimes.