Trial Monitoring

SJAC’s comprehensive trial monitoring program establishes a historical record of Syria-related trials and ensures the availability of documentation for victims and families. Many domestic trials of perpetrators in the Syrian context lack official court transcripts and/or translations, rendering proceedings opaque, limiting the scope of testimony available, and hindering future opportunities for reflection on human rights violations and justice processes.

SJAC’s trial monitoring program started in April 2020 with the trial of Anwar R. and Eyad Al-Gharib  in Koblenz, Germany. Currently, SJAC’s trial monitoring team is following the trial of an alleged former government affiliate and doctor at military hospitals, Alaa M., that started in Frankfurt, Germany in January 2022, and the trial against former Syrian government militia member, Ahmad H., which started in May 2024 in Hamburg, Germany.

SJAC has compiled several resources ranging from accompanying analyses, reports, and lists of witnesses for each trial. To access the resources, click on the links below

SJAC’s trial monitors are not only following trials in Europe and cases of former Syrian government affiliates, but also cases of ISIS members in the United States, such as the cases against El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey (the so-called “ISIS Beatles”) at the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria, USA. Other cases SJAC has previously tracked include the ISIS propogandist Mohammad Khalifa  and the case of Allison Fluke-Ekren.

As part of its trial monitoring project, SJAC publishes regular trial reports, explanatory articles , detailed analytical reports  on the proceedings available in both English and Arabic. During the latter half of the trial of Anwar Raslan, SJAC produced a bi-weekly Arabic language podcast which explained the fundamentals of Universal Jurisdiction and key events taking place during the trial. The podcast is available on Spotify.