⁍ Lawyers representing victims of chemical weapons attacks in Syria say they have filed criminal complaints with Germany’s federal public prosecutor.

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⁍ Germany has ‘universal jurisdiction’ laws that allow it to prosecute people for crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world.

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⁍ The Syrian government denies it has used chemical weapons against its own civilians.

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– A group of lawyers representing victims of chemical weapons attacks in Syria has filed criminal complaints against Syrian officials in Germany, offering what Reuters calls a “rare legal avenue” for action against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. A spokesman for Germany’s Public Prosecutor General confirmed the complaint had been submitted, declining to give further details. The complaints are based on what the lawyers say is the most comprehensive body of evidence so far on the use of substances such as sarin gas in Syria in Ghouta in 2013 and in Khan Sheikhoun four years later, which killed at least 1,400 people. They include testimonies from 17 survivors and 50 defectors with knowledge of the Syrian government’s chemical weapons program or plans to carry out the two attacks, they say. “Prosecutors may ultimately determine they have sufficient evidence to issue arrest warrants for members of the Assad regime,” says a lawyer with the Open Society Foundation’s Justice Initiative, one of three organizations behind the complaints. “This would be a major step in the longer term process to secure trials against Syrian officials.” A UNcommissioned investigation to identify those behind chemical weapons attacks in Syria concluded in 2016 that Syrian government forces had used chlorine and sarin gas. “It is a small step but it gives us hope that maybe one day we could see justice,” says a volunteer medic who was injured while rescuing victims of the attack in Ghouta.