The trial of former Syrian intelligence senior officer Anwar Raslan in Germany continues with more witnesses in the queue to give their testimonies about the roles he played in the Syrian conflict. Because of his familiarity with and his in-depth investigations into the subject, “Der Spiegel” reporter Christoph Reuter stood before the court and gave his account regarding the Syrian situation.
Reuter, currently living in Lebanon, studied in Syria in 1989, where he learned Arabic and gained more familiarity with the country. When the revolution broke out, he was intent to cover it, and was able to enter it several times as a correspondent to “Der Spiegel”.
According to The Levant News, during the session, Reuter talked about his close relations with some Syrians in an attempt to verify or refute the Assad regime’s claim of the presence of Jihadists groups with funding from abroad, especially Al-Nusra Front.
In the spring of 2012, Reuter was informed about a point in Baba Amr, Homs, where corpses were collected and photographed before being transported in refrigerated trucks.
Reuter confirmed that he attended several demonstrations in Syria and witnessed first-hand the regime forces shooting demonstrators, killing hundreds in the first few months while Assad claimed that it was the doing of jihadists in hopes to present himself as the lesser of two evils.
Reuter explained that he was surprised that despite the escalation of the violence and the threat of arrest and torture, and enforced disappearance, more people took to the streets to demonstrate. During that period, he focused on jihadists and Hezbollah as political and military organizations, which made him particularly interested in Major General Ali Mamlouk, who worked with Assef Shawkat and participated in transporting foreign jihadists to Iraq before 2011.
Reuter said that audio recordings of encounters between the Islamic State and Hezbollah and detail on making car bombs and carrying out attacks existed with Mamlouk at the center of these activities maintaining contacts with Tehran and Lebanon.
In 2013, Reuter recounted, the former deputy chief of Daraa police, whom he met in Jordan, pointed him towards Anwar Raslan. And indeed, Reuter met with Raslan once in the latter’s apartment in Amman, two more times in May 13 and 14, 2013, then twice more in 2014 and 2015 when Raslan moved to Germany.
In their first meetings in Jordan, the focus of their conversation centered on the jihadists, al-Qaeda, and suicide bombers who entered Syria from several other countries, such as Libya and Saudi Arabia. They brought up the explosions that occurred in Syria at the beginning of 2011, including in the State Security Complex, in Kafr Sousa in December 23, 2011, which was followed by a meeting between Ali Mamlouk and Raslan in which he told Mamlouk that he wanted to open an investigation, to which Mamlouk responded, “There is no need for that.” Raslan believed that Mamlouk wanted to exploit the incident as a proof to the presence of terrorism in Syria. Reuter confirmed the account from another source who indicated that the explosion was staged. Raslan also talked about Al-Nusra Front declaring itself as a jihadist group, despite not existing at the time.
The conversation with Raslan at the time did not touch on the nature of his previous work in the Al-Khatib branch, however Raslan still spoke about the tools and methods of torture in the branch. Raslan justified his defection to Reuters, saying that he was unhappy about the results of investigations being falsified and used in favor of the presence of terrorism in Syria, and about the unjustified torture of innocent people who had no information at all, referring to fabricated clips filmed in the regime’s intelligence buildings showing fake jihadists.
In addition, Raslan explained that he was under great pressure to prove himself from Al-Hula region, which revolted against the regime. He said he has two options, either to work harder than everyone else to prove his loyalty, or to leave; either way he was not trusted. The pressure increased on him after 2011, due to tension between him and Hafez Makhlouf, who stood against releasing people who did not have any information.
Major General Deep Ziatoun has supported Raslan for a period before telling him that “I cannot help you, your Sunni denomination is a problem.” “Raslan was bitter because the security services claimed that every Sunni is fundamentally disloyal until proven otherwise. This offended him after working with the regime for 35 years,” Reuter commented to the court.
According to the German journalist, Raslan has a photographic memory, which enabled him to describe many investigations and interviews without referring to any file, but that he does not know if Raslan has delivered any files to the opposition. Reuter insisted that Raslan is a very attentive person and is unlikely to have been unaware of what occurred in his workplace and within the scope of his responsibility.
Zaman Al Wasl
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