Austrian court convicts asylum seeker of Syria war crimes

A 27-year-old asylum seeker has been sentenced to life imprisonment in Austria after being convicted of war crimes over the killing of 20 people.

The man, who has not been named, was found guilty on Wednesday of “murder as a terrorism offence” by five members of an eight-strong jury in Innsbruck, for shooting wounded or unarmed Syrian government soldiers following a battle in the city of Homs.

The killing of wounded soldiers contravenes the Geneva convention, and is considered a war crime.

The man had denied the charges, saying he had simply been relating his experience of the war but this was misunderstood as him saying that he had been responsible for the deaths he witnessed.

The main evidence against him was a confession he gave to regional officials. The court refused to believe the defendant’s repeated claims that he had been incorrectly translated.

“He explained that he had shot dead badly wounded soldiers,” the translator said in evidence to the court. “I even asked him again and he confirmed it.” He said a written version of the confession was translated back to the man at the end of the questioning and he had signed every page of it.

The man had apparently boasted to other residents at the shelter that he had belonged to the Faruq Brigade, a subgroup of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), and had fought against troops loyal to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, in Homs in 2013 and 2014. He travelled to Austria and sought asylum in May 2015.

It is thought to be the first time that a case involving war crimes in Syria has been tried in Austria.