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Suspected Syrian Pro-regime Fighter Goes on Trial in the Netherlands

A police officer walks near an Apple store in central Amsterdam during a hostage incident in the store, in Amsterdam, Netherlands February 22, 2022. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
A police officer walks near an Apple store in central Amsterdam during a hostage incident in the store, in Amsterdam, Netherlands February 22, 2022. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
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Suspected Syrian Pro-regime Fighter Goes on Trial in the Netherlands

A police officer walks near an Apple store in central Amsterdam during a hostage incident in the store, in Amsterdam, Netherlands February 22, 2022. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
A police officer walks near an Apple store in central Amsterdam during a hostage incident in the store, in Amsterdam, Netherlands February 22, 2022. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

A suspected Syrian pro-government militia member on trial in the Netherlands on Thursday refused to answer any questions from judges about allegations that he was involved in the arrest and torture of at least two people in Syria in 2012.

The 35-year-old man, identified only as Mustafa A., faces charges of war crimes and crimes again humanity for arresting at least two people and handing them over to Syrian Air Force intelligence officials who ran a prison where they were tortured.

It is the first Dutch war crimes trial of a suspect accused of fighting on the side of the government of President Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian conflict.

According to prosecutors, Mustafa A. was a leading member of the Liwa al-Quds, or the Jerusalem Brigade. Liwa al-Quds is a militia made up mostly of Palestinian refugees living in Syria founded during the early years of Syria's 12-year war.

On the first day of the trial, judges quoted witnesses who said the suspect was a prominent Liwa al-Quds member involved in their violent arrests and gave details of beatings and torture they endured in prison.

Despite being asked numerous times for a reaction to the declarations and excerpts from his own police interviews and intercepted phone calls Mustafa A. invoked his right to remain silent at every turn, Reuters reported.
The suspect, arrested last year, had been living in the Netherlands since 2020 and had applied for asylum there.

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7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
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7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV

Russian shelling in the town of Chasiv Yar on Saturday killed five people, as Moscow’s troops pushed ahead in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The attack struck a high-rise building and a private home, said regional Gov. Vadym Filaskhin, who said the victims were men aged 24 to 38. He urged the last remaining residents to leave the front-line town, which had a pre-war population of 12,000.
“Normal life has been impossible in Chasiv Yar for more than two years,” Filaskhin wrote on social media. “Do not become a Russian target — evacuate.” A further two people were killed by Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region. One victim was pulled from the rubble of a house in the village of Cherkaska Lozova, said Gov. Oleh Syniehubov, while a second woman died of her wounds while being transported to a hospital.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it captured the town of Pivnichne, also in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim.
Russian forces have been driving deeper into the partly occupied eastern region, the total capture of which is one of the Kremlin’s primary ambitions. Russia’s army is closing in on Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub for the Ukrainian defense in the area.
At the same time, Ukraine has sent its forces into Russia’s Kursk region in recent weeks in the largest incursion onto Russian soil since World War II. The move is partly an effort to force Russia to draw troops away from the Donetsk front.
Elsewhere, the number of wounded following a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday continued to rise.
Six people were killed, including a 14-year-old girl, when glide bombs struck five locations across the city, said regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov. Writing on social media Saturday, he said that the number of injured had risen from 47 to 96.
Syniehubov also confirmed that the 12-story apartment block that was hit by one bomb strike, setting the building ablaze and trapping at least one person on an upper floor, would be partly demolished.
Ukrainian officials have previously pointed to the Kharkiv strikes as further evidence that Western partners should scrap restrictions on what the Ukrainian military can target with donated weapons.
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that Kyiv had presented Washington with a list of potential long-range targets within Russia for its approval. “I hope we were heard,” he said.
He also denied speculation that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ’s decision to dismiss the commander of the country’s air force Friday was directly linked to the destruction of an F-16 warplane that Ukraine received from its Western partners four days earlier.
The order to dismiss Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk was published on the presidential website minutes before an address which saw Zelenskyy stress the need to “take care of all our soldiers.”
“This is two separate issues,” said Umerov. “At this stage, I would not connect them.”
The number of injured also continued to rise in the Russian border region of Belgorod, where five people were killed Friday by Ukrainian shelling, said Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. He said Sunday that 46 people had been injured, of whom 37 were in the hospital, including seven children. Writing on social media, Gladkov also said that two others had been injured in Ukrainian shelling across the region.