VIENNA: An ex-Syrian general and a former senior Syrian police officer go on trial in Vienna on Monday, accused of torturing opponents of the now-deposed regime of Bashar Assad.
State prosecutors in Vienna said in a statement the two were accused “of having, on numerous occasions, ordered or failed to oppose the mistreatment of members of a protest movement.”
The defendants, a former brigadier general in the Syrian intelligence services and a former head of the investigations office of the local criminal police, are said to have committed the crimes in Raqqa between April 2011 and March 2013.
The prosecutors’ statement did not name the defendants, in line with their procedure before any court verdict is handed down.
The Austrian newspaper Der Standard named the intelligence officer as Brig. Gen. Khaled Al-Halabi.
