Austrian Court Convicts Former Syrian Intelligence Chief of Torture at Raqqa Detention Facility

A Vienna court on Monday convicted Khaled al-Halabi, a 63-year-old former Syrian brigadier general who headed the General Intelligence Directorate in Raqqa from 2011 to 2013, of torture, aggravated coercion, sexual assault and serious bodily harm, sentencing him to eight years 12. Co-defendant Musab Abu Rukbah, 54, a former police lieutenant colonel, received the same eight-year sentence on the coercion, sexual assault and bodily harm counts, though he was not charged with torture 13. More than a dozen victims testified during the month-long trial that they were beaten, electrocuted, doused in hot and cold water or strapped to a "flying carpet," a hinged wooden board used to contort victims during beatings, with one man describing repeated beatings to the soles of his feet with electric cables 14. Prosecutors said al-Halabi acted on "direct instructions" from Damascus using "standardised" methods, a claim he denied by testifying he had facilitated the Free Syrian Army's takeover of Raqqa and fled the city; the court found the abuses, which occurred between April 2011 and March 2013, constituted state-organized torture and ordered 130,000 euros in compensation under the principle of universal jurisdiction, a legal tool also used in recent Syria-related trials in France, Germany, Sweden and Belgium 124.