Support Monitoring of Syrian War Crimes Trial

Thank you for your generous support of SJAC’s “Support Monitoring of Syrian War Crimes Trial” campaign through GlobalGiving. This project aims to ensure broad access to a historical record of the trial of Anwar Raslan and Eyad Al-Gharib in Koblenz, Germany. SJAC’s trial monitors have attended every day of the trial and produced both Arabic and English reporting and analysis to inform the Syrian community of progress in the trial and avenues of justice.

To date, SJAC has published 24 trial monitoring reports in English and 16 reports in Arabic. Unfortunately, the cost of Arabic-language translation has exceeded present means and we have been forced to delay the translation of our full trial reports. We are appreciative of your support in making the current level of translation possible, and we have continued to publish summaries in Arabic. We hope to publish the full Arabic versions of all our reports as we receive further donations.

In February, the trials of Raslan and Al-Gharib were severed and Al-Gharib was sentenced to 4.5 years imprisonment for aiding and abetting torture and severe deprivation of liberty as crimes against humanity. This is the first verdict against a former employee of the Syrian government. While many celebrated the verdict, Syrians had mixed reactions to a verdict based mainly on Al-Gharib’s own testimony. SJAC has provided detailed analysis and lessons learned from the sentencing. Thanks to your generosity, SJAC was able to publish this verdict in both English and Arabic.

As part of “the bright new wave of trial monitoring activities,” SJAC’s trial reports continue to provide important information for Syrians following the trial and for the justice community. Our sincerest thanks for your contribution to this project. Keep up to date with our latest reports on our website.

Links:

• Keep up to date with our most recent trial reports