In a small but significant step toward justice, federal prosecutors in Germany arrested a doctor accused of carrying out torture in one of the Syrian regime’s notorious detention centers. 

Alaa M., as he is identified under Germany’s privacy laws, was arrested on Friday night in the central German state of Hesse on suspicion of crimes against humanity and grievous bodily harm. 

Prosecutors allege that Alaa M. worked at a prison in the Syrian city of Homs during the first year of the uprising against the country's President Bashar al-Assad. The charges say that one day in October 2011, Alaa M. was notified that a detainee had suffered a torture-induced epileptic seizure. Rather than administer care, Alaa M. beat the detainee with a plastic tube when he arrived at the scene, according to a statement from the federal prosecutor's office.  

By the next day, the detainee’s “health [had] deteriorated significantly.” Prosecutors allege Alaa M. and another doctor then beat the man a second time, causing him to lose consciousness. Prison guards carried the prisoner away on a blanket, and he later died in custody.