A FORMER Syrian secret police officer was convicted by a German court yesterday of crimes against humanity for overseeing the abuse of detainees at a jail near Damascus a decade ago.

Anwar Raslan is the highest-ranking Syrian official so far convicted of the charge in a trial held under the principle of “universal jurisdiction,” whereby a court can rule on crimes committed in other countries. He is among 800,000 Syrian refugees in Germany who fled the country’s civil war.

The Koblenz state court concluded that the defendant was in charge of interrogations at a facility in the Syrian city of Douma known as Al Khatib, or Branch 251, where suspected opposition protesters were detained.