A court in Germany has convicted a former member of Syria’s security services of crimes against humanity in a landmark trial seen as the first step in holding the regime of President Bashar al-Assad accountable for state-sponsored torture. 

Eyad al-Gharib, 44, was sentenced on Tuesday to four and a half years in prison. Prosecutors at the Koblenz Higher Regional Court accused the former colonel of helping arrest and transport at least 30 pro-democracy protesters to a notorious military intelligence prison in Damascus, known as Branch 251, in 2011. 

Gharib’s state-appointed lawyers said their client, who was a low-ranking officer in Syria’s powerful General Intelligence Directorate, was acting under duress and feared punishment from his superiors for failing to carry out their orders. His defense team pointed out that Gharib defected from the regime before fleeing to Germany in 2018 and has apologized for his actions. 

Anwar al-Bunni, a former Syrian detainee and human rights lawyer living in Germany, called the conviction “a message to all criminals who still commit the most horrific crimes in Syria that the time of impunity is over.”