reveal the symphony's of your harness pumps. how did the romantic master come up with such a piece of. the secrets of symphonic magic. brahms code starts october 11th w. . father enough. we were in the german city of last number look after months of research we come face to face with this man. an alleged syrian war criminal who we can only identify as mohamed s. living freely in germany who is in the allegations against him are grave now the

shah's least we know that this man is in germany he was involved in numerous crimes against civilians in the middle east suspected war criminals like mohammad s. joined of the many syrian refugees who have come to germany now the german authorities and other groups are working to track them down they say no criminal should feel safe it was i felt it why should we do this because no one else says and because these are the worst crimes we've seen in decades that it seems that the off the top these are come last heinous atrocities committed against human beings must not go unpunished life. last year we discovered lists on line drawn up by syrian. activists. they provided

the names and photos of alleged syrian war criminals said to have gone into hiding in germany. in many cases the lists provided no compelling evidence. but the allegations against this matter mohammad s. were detailed and specific so we decided to see what more we could find out. where on our way to see someone who says he used to live in the syrian city of aleppo in the same neighborhood as mohammed s. . the man who we still call ahmed is afraid of muhammad s. and doesn't want to be identified on camera. he begins to tell us what he knows. mohammad s. and i are from the same part of northern aleppo from honduras. soon after the start of the uprising in syria in 2011 he set up

a militia called the out could see brigade. and capture that he started being very aggressive towards ordinary civilians especially demonstrators he would beat them lock them up and kill them. did not only hear about the crimes committed by the brigade he says he even witnessed some of them. according to him the militia was led by 2 men one of whom was mohammed s. . there appeared to be at least 2 groups that are fought in syria under the name of coots one has been mainly active in northern aleppo. we find propaganda videos posted online by the group. on one mohammed just takes a reporter from a lebanese broadcaster through the rubble of his neighborhood showing her from where they were shot at and where the fighters have been hiding.

the brigade is considered part of the so-called shut behind network of state sponsored militia largely made up of former civilians armed by the regime of bashar assad. german authorities investigating suspected syrian militants are well aware of these groups. our source ahmed makes specific allegations. i was there when mohammad asked threatened a doctor at gunpoint when he tried to treat wounded civilians. these people had been shot and injured near our neighborhood. so they were taken to see a doctor. i was there with mohamed s. and his brothers threatened to kill the doctor. yeah. they said he mustn't give medical treatment to the wounded civilians. but says

mohammed has also gave the order to shoot at unarmed protesters and recruited child soldiers for the war. it's impossible for us to verify many of his statements but we continue to search for more witnesses. which brings us to the federal criminal police office near bonn this building houses germany's central unit for the fight against war crimes costs on and his team deal every day with statements that are difficult to verify the police officers here investigate cases even if they've been carried out in syria. and also end up in all german law states that even when a non german citizen commits a crime against another german outside of germany if the crimes are extremely serious like genocide war crimes or crimes against humanity then we can investigate it from here in germany. and that. if the suspected perpetrator is in germany so

on and his team are called in statements from victims and witnesses are vital for the police officers here and play a key role in the investigation. it's the large number of statements from witnesses that concur with one another and the many investigations that start to give us a picture. and ultimately it's this evidence from witnesses that allows us to build up a case. the police here are currently investigating more than 2500 such leads. we cross the country to berlin. here the european center for constitutional and human rights or e.c.c. h.r. for short provides legal support for victims of war crimes. and crimes against humanity. actually coca is responsible for the ngos work on syria let's get this

far. in full to fight with focused mainly on the allegation of torture and torture can be a war crime and it could also be a crime against humanity. what both these crimes have in common is that they are only punishable under international law within a certain context which is a context that increase public in the case of war crimes that context is armed conflict it may be a civil war or transnational one. once that's been determined the crimes under international law such as killing detention torture or abuse of prisoners like cetera become war crimes. the e.c.c. h.r. helps victims to give evidence on the abuses they've experienced but it's not just about the individual cases the nonprofit organization is looking to prove that the individual perpetrators in syria are part of a system of torture and murder targeting the civilian population. and to do that

they need evidence. if manton who is about to come was born 13 years after his brothers. we'd actually been hoping for a girl. before he had a wonderful childhood flick in one of their home was a very good looking boy who when he was a quiet tidy. totally different from his brothers. and he was an outstanding student at school along with. the story of how knocks on a home is one of many that could help prove systematic torture and cover up on the part of the syrian regime. in late 2011 her son

was arrested by the secret police for the 2nd time in just a few months. what are. they tied his hands behind his back and then beat him in the stomach of a futile. it is in the used players to rip the nails off his fingers and. they push needles through his ears if. they wanted to pull all his teeth out as well had one of the guards said he couldn't bear to watch and so he hit him over the head with a club instead. she says a ham was then packed into a car and taken to a different prison. for months she didn't know where her son was. it was only later that she was informed by the syrian authorities that her son had died of a heart attack. but one of the hams fellow prisoners told her what really happened . doctor was being held with him in the same

cell said. the doctor knocked on the door of their cell and called out to the guard . comes the young you need to save this young man he said. he's got internal bleeding. just nobody is just the guard told him just tell me when he's dead. 5 days later he was. the guard then had a doctor come and certify. that. years later photos appeared online showing the bodies of those who died in the prisons of the assad regime including a ham they became known as the caesar photos. this is my son's corpse number 320 and the division that arrested him to 15. the photo of a hammer is one of thousands of shocking images taken by

a syrian military defector code named caesar. between 20112013 caesar photographed the bodies of prisoners who died in syrian government detention facilities and. i'm one of the lawyers representing the seize a group. we brought the photos to germany we've been working with the e.c.c. a and with other organizations in germany and in sweden to bring charges against syrian leaders on the basis of these photos. to be. swayed. to international. media the number has been written directly on the body. this is the symbol for syria's air force intelligence service and here on the paper is the victim's number. all and here again force intelligence.

finally the corpse has been given a number. when we look at the photos smuggled out by caesar it's clear that this torture is terrible and above all systematic it's always the same injuries that we see on. the bodies of the prison those. and even now prisoners in syria suffering the same torture every day. after fleeing syria madea shared everything she knew with the e.c.c. h.r. and the german authorities. the syrian lawyer abraham sam knows her story and is often ask her to repeat it. how long was he detained the 1st time. in 33 days in the 1st prison and another 33

in the 2nd. the ngo range for the photos to be passed on to the german federal prosecutor's office which after months of forensic tests concluded they are genuine. this is had from before. and the value of this evidence is incredible it's almost like having access to mass graves in syria which is out of the question that you'd suddenly have thousands of photos of many many people believed to have been tortured to death with nothing to to for to mention it had these photos can be analyzed as evidence by forensic medical experts and can be studied properly in an investigation like this. fog. but the photos are only part of the investigation into war crimes committed in syria. the authorities still need those who are willing to give evidence and there

are many syrians in germany ready to do just that and to testify against other syrians not living in germany. it's that. for the past 8 years this has been an unbelievably dirty war with the worst atrocities you can imagine being committed on all sides. so there's an unbelievable number of perpetrator. then you have this huge exodus to see people changing sides others deserving and lots of people running away and of course some of those people were involved in the crimes. just on i think it's a logical consequence of this chaos of war also you can trick civilian have holes. inside you to kill or lee since we had the big influx of refugees we've been able to engage with many of the victims and witnesses and speak to them and question them. and we have indeed carried out many interviews in order from the moment

what's. next we're off to switzerland. here in lago majority we meet the woman who had hoped to get syrian war criminals brought before the international criminal court in a. colorado punter. in 1990 she was appointed chief prosecutor for united nations tribunal is on war crimes in rwanda and the former yugoslavia in 2012 she joined a new u.n. commission to investigate crimes in syria it had no power to prosecute sodo punter called repeatedly for an international tribunal for syria only. that soon i wanted to apply pressure to try to convince the security council. what

i would ask do you want to do something or not. the type to be all you want justice for the victims or don't you do we want this president to be brought to trial. and like. that even if he's 55 years i worked on it hoping something would happen but nothing did. health with the heat. so i love. i was frustrated i had really had enough that. the u.n. security council has long been divided over syria that point he says the veto powers russia and china opposed establishing a tribunal so it's left to the nation states to try to bring individuals to trial in see it in. we don't have an international tribunal for syria but the national courts are at least getting some of the lower ranking perpetrators and that's great . so german authorities are free to investigate suspected war criminals in syria

if the suspects are in germany they are in fact required to do so under german law . we continue our efforts to track down more crimes suspect mohamed s. a new witness wants to talk to us about what he knows he lives near the french border. he too wants to remain anonymous for fear of muhammad s. the 2 of them used to be neighbors in northern aleppo you tells us. i remember one as a tense well. at a checkpoint near our neighborhood a car that's azuki was shot at by government troops. 4 members of one family were sitting on the back seat. the father was wounded by the shots so the family fled to our neighborhood we immediately brought the

severely wounded man to a doctor then mohammad s. and his brothers turned up they were the leaders of a militia they wanted us to give them the man even though he was severely wounded. they refused to hand over the wounded man this witness this statement is very similar to that of the 1st one although told from a different perspective. there. hence are said to have taken place here in a suburb of aleppo where mohamed has sent his brigade thought. the new witness is able to identify some of the other militants. the calls of. this boy here was only a minor with. us his name was out on. the other whether he was 13 years old when he started fighting. he was killed in the conflict when he was 15 or 16 bus and. so mohammad has is said to be the leader of a group that recruited

a 13 year old child soldier the most specific indication of a war crime so far and that's not all the witness says he heard mohammad is giving instructions by phone to carry out an air raid on a school. that i've been in it was between the 20th and 24th of november 2012 i no longer remember the exact date. and. it was just before sundown some between 5 and 6 in the evening. me and mohamed s. was standing right outside his front door. not inside the house or beside it. and then i heard him say the name of the school. that i see his exact words were. there on time it was the end there in this area and this school nasr and it never knew re bakery. but he says the people inside the

school building were not armed they were civilians who had fled from the fighting so according to our witness hamad s. had ordered an air raid on civilians the most serious allegation we've heard so far . we then meet with a syrian human rights lawyer anwar out of boni. he estimates that around a 1000 syrian war criminals are no hiding in europe he's taking us to see someone who was tortured in syrian detention but survived to him. we're going to see a witness who gave a statement on a very specific case. and it's partly because of his statement that 2 suspects are now in custody here in germany. i was the witness was a victim of these 2 men will. he tell the german federal prosecutor how they tortured him. money

is highly respected within large parts of the syrian community in europe. many syrians trust him because he spent decades as a lawyer representing political dissidents in syria. he also spent 5 years in a syrian prison. with him in the background victims are more emboldened to talk. to the 2 men greet each other warmly. the 1st time i was arrested it was at the start of the demonstrations in 2011 by then i want to take photos of one of the demonstrations and there were others needs to be filming and taking photos too. but suddenly just after

the end of the rally i was arrested by people from the secret service you. suffered a low. life is also marco watley was arrested several times he says he was tortured every time and that those responsible are now in germany. head of the department arrested him identified only as anwar and one of his henchmen had. the german federal prosecutor had both of them arrested at the start of this year. but he had a was then released in may. we managed to get in contact with his brother and wanted to interview him but the brother refused shortly after that the authorities rearrested a day. the father. when i was in syria there was no way i could

press charges against these men. i was so pleased when i heard that germany wants to prosecute war crimes. that encourage me to go to the authorities and give evidence i see it as a chance to get justice not only for me but for all the other prisoners too. the 2 suspects are expected to go on trial early next year. helps and the survivors are our main lead yet as this case shows where 2 people are now in custody anwar are and. it was through contact with the witnesses that we are supporting that we discovered that this anwar are was said to be in germany. but once we realized the federal prosecutor was already investigating it was clear that we didn't need to take any action that we were content then to just support their investigations. we want to know what

syrian lawyer an oil burning knows about the suspect we have been investigating mohamed s. we share with him the information we received about possible crimes carried out by muhammad s. . we know that this man is in germany. he belonged to the brigade in north and in 100 out. we assume that he was involved in numerous crimes against civilians and that he. who are currently trying to gather as much evidence on him as we can. and that the norms that are and how to. use libya. we discover that mohammad us lives in the northwestern german city of pluck. so we

set out to find him. but we soon discover that he's given out a number of fake addresses. we go to inquire it want to. the locations. which show the photograph of the suspect to one of the residents he tells us that he's been living here for 20 years and has never seen the man in the photo. but then we strike lucky. we meet someone who knows mohamed us from doing a german language course. he tells us mohammad has smoked a lot and seemed restless and stressed none of the other pupils knew where he lived if he met up with anyone but only in town.

we're told that even when he has his furniture delivered he has it dropped at this open space. his behavior is certainly unusual. finally right nearby we find him mohammad s suspected war criminals living with his family hidden away in this residential complex. we identify ourselves as coming from german public television. which i am that we received information that he fought in syria and ask him if we could talk about it . he invites us in. he tells us he doesn't want to be identified on television here in germany back in syria he seemed to enjoy the attention of television cameras. but now he says it could endanger members of his family back at home. he came to germany by plane be

a iran he says and he confirms that he's the man on the photos that he co-founded the brigade and let it. he says they were politically neutral and fought only against terrorists. we ask if it's true that this boy was only 13 years old when he fought alongside him. this boy he says no i think he was 18. we ask if you gave coordinates for an air raid on a school where refugees civilians were sheltering no he says he never did that. the witnesses who have spoken out against him say they've taken their information to the german police they hope that one day he will face trial. in the bank and you have to remember that there are always victims for every perpetrator. and they are waiting for justice but that just beat.

the stock as it stands an incredibly strong signal when people arrive here and find the rule of law being applied to these crimes where they have rights and where the accused also have rights that signature that also encourages integration here when they experience fair legal proceedings bringing those who've tortured others to trial. let's just go talk to. single one of the we don't want to force anyone to give evidence but i can only encourage victims who have specific information about crimes carried out in syria especially if the perpetrators are living here in germany has to go to the police so that we can then take things for other boards both lungs or. supported psyche and with your guns or what the law would not.

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