Germany and Sweden announced the arrest of eight people suspected of committing crimes against humanity on behalf of the regime of Bashar Assad during the civil war in Syria, reported France Presse, quoted by BTA.
Five of them were detained in Germany, and the rest - in Sweden, as part of a joint operation. Four of the detainees are stateless Palestinians, the last one is a former Syrian intelligence officer.
According to a statement by the German federal prosecutor's office, there are "strong suspicions of killing or attempted killing of civilians as crimes against humanity and war crimes" committed during the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011 with the suppression of anti-government demonstrations.
The persons arrested in Sweden are "suspected of committing a crime against humanity in Syria in 2012", according to the communique of the Swedish prosecutor's office.
Among the suspects arrested in Germany are four stateless people of Palestinian origin, members of an armed militia that was exercising "on behalf of the Syrian regime" control over the Yarmouk neighborhood in Damascus, the prosecutor's office says.
"All the defendants participated in the violent suppression of a peaceful demonstration against the Syrian government on July 13, 2012 in Yarmouk,", the same source added, indicating that they "fired on the demonstrators". In addition, between mid-2012 and 2014, they engaged in "massive physical violence, sometimes repeatedly" on civilians in Yarmouk by several suspects. They are also suspected of handing over to the authorities three civilians who were subsequently killed in a "mass execution".
The arrests were made in the framework of judicial cooperation between the German and Swedish authorities, with the support of the Europol and Eurojust agencies and several European countries.
Germany has already prosecuted Syrians for atrocities committed during the civil war under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows certain serious crimes to be prosecuted regardless of where they were committed, AFP recalls.