Spanish court investigates Syrian officials over torture, execution

A Spanish National Court judge has ordered an investigation into nine Syrian officials over the disappearance and execution of a man in 2013, in the first criminal case accepted by a European court against President Bashar Assad's regime.

Investigative magistrate Eloy Velasco said Monday the nine could be charged with terrorism and forced disappearance.

The case is built around the 2013 arbitrary detention, disappearance, torture and execution of a truck driver in Damascus. The complaint was filed last month by the driver's sister, Amal Hag Hamdo Anfalis, a Spanish national.

Velasco is investigating the case under Spain's principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows prosecution of crimes outside of the country only if there is a Spanish victim. In Monday's acceptance of the case, Velasco considers the sister as the victim.

Photographs confirming the death and apparent torture of Amal’s brother were smuggled out of Syria by a forensic photographer, codenamed “Cesar”.

The photographer smuggled 50,000 graphic photos of detainees tortured and maimed in government prisons out of Syria in 2013.

The cache of photos, showing emaciated bodies and people with their eyes gouged out, provided a dossier of crimes allegedly committed by Assad's regime.

Judge Velasco asked that both "Cesar" and the victim’s sister testify in the case in April.

The Syrian conflict began when the Baath regime, in power since 1963 and led by President Bashar al-Assad, responded with military force to peaceful protests demanding democratic reforms during the Arab Spring wave of uprisings, triggering an armed rebellion fueled by mass defections from the Syrian army.

According to independent monitors, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed in the war, mostly by the regime and its powerful allies, and millions have been displaced both inside and outside of Syria.

The brutal tactics pursued mainly by the regime, which have included the use of chemical weapons, sieges, mass executions and torture against civilians have led to war crimes investigations.