this is deja vu news live from berlin and historic verdict in the world's 1st court case over state sponsored torture in syria a former secret service agent is found guilty for his role in were pressing anti assad regime protests 10 years ago victims and their relatives helped the trial will set a precedent and finally get them justice. also coming up and iraqi preacher is jailed for 10 years for radicalizing and recruiting down people to fight for the so-called islamic state. is believed to be the group's de facto leader in germany.

german officials give emergency approval for a new easy to use coronavirus tests kids it is hoped that massive self testing will help keep track of the virus as lock down restrictions are gradually increased. plus the ecological disaster affecting more than half of israel's coastline calls grow for the government to do more after an oil spill in dangerous precious marine life. i'm sumi so much good to have you with us a court in the same copeland's here in germany has found a syrian man guilty of being an accomplice to crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 4 and a half years in prison 44 year old has been convicted of facilitating the torture of syrian opposition protesters a decade ago in damascus the. fense argued he could not disobeyed orders to detain

the activists for fear of his own life is the world's 1st trial in connection to syrian state sponsored torture. or some victims of torture were among those testifying they hope that this trial could set an international president did agree spoke to one young syrian here in germany she hasn't seen her father since he disappeared 8 years ago witnesses say he was seized by armed men from his home in damascus there are always fresh flowers next to ali moustafa us portrait he was forcibly disappeared in syria 8 years ago the few remaining photos of him i would start to laugh as most precious possessions just look at them a 1000 times trying to conjure up his presence the day it happened was i was away her mother then living in northern syria had meant to visit her husband in the mess because they hadn't seen each other in months. 3 minutes before she arrived she

called them and said that i need 15 i'll be there in 15 so he said that i clean the house everything is perfect and i'm just waiting for you'll. see out just in minutes later she i have. she called him and he never responded oh all. you know i mean of the day but i was so calling to neighbors armed men had come to take stuff away while father mother and sisters had to flee syria one week later and leave him behind they still don't know anything about what happened to him. but i actually survived by leaving syria and not getting killed. maybe i have physically survived somehow bar you cannot just get used to the fact that you lost your dad in one second you know you cannot just used to the fact that used to the fact that he just

disappeared for nor is a. while for us fathers one of 130000 people gone missing in syria most of them were disappeared in bashar al assad's prisons where torture is systematic. now the 2 former syrian intelligence officers are going on trial for crimes against humanity there's a glimmer of hope for families like waffles when the trial started wafa such amongst the portrait of $61.00 detainees and held a vigil in front of the court times i lay in mind myself and i don't mind the whole word every day that my dad was political was against a team he only demanded freedom justice and the state of law and for that reason has been disappeared for almost 8 years now and this is not acceptable i'm not going to be silent about that today while for feels at home in berlin she could see herself returning to syria and rebuilding the country eventually in the meantime

it's important for her to be in germany at this moment. i think this is the hold off for many syrians in very many we are working our best to be part of the decision making regarding syria because you cannot just discuss and decide anything about us without us. well her hopes to reunite with her father one day until then should remind the world of the fate of syrian getting. well let's get more on the trial in copeland's now the fun highness been following proceedings for us there as we said this is the 1st international trial of state torture conducted by the assad regime in syria tell us about the verdict here and what exactly the defendant has been accused of well the verdict is the accused has been found guilty of crimes against humanity because he has supported the

depreciation of liberty and torture in at least 2 cases but. this case is not just about a if this was made clear by the ruling of uncovered actually the ruling is not just over i had to step out here but she took at great length she talked about a system of torture in syria as a system of oppression systems that bashar al assad had installed to keep his iron grip on the country and actually that's what's on trial here today and copeland's what was the sentence for and for how long. the sentence for yet is 4 and a half years in prison and that means that even though his being in prison during the trial and pretrial in pretrial it was and he will stay in prison and will not walk as a free man out of his called room it is a lot of people been wondering why this trial on state sponsored torture in syria

is taking place in germany one why is that well obviously the best place for a trial like that would be syria itself but that's not possible because so puppa traits is the main perpetrators all still in charge there. but here comes into play something that we call. international criminal law and universal jurisdiction because of that german prosecutors and german court can prosecute crimes even though they have been committed in germany and even doing music germans are involved either as victims or. as people who do those crimes. from high end reporting in the cold lands for us thank you. ok we some breaking news coming in

on another court case are here in germany and the tourists and iraqi preacher known as abu allah has been found guilty of supporting terrorism and being a member of a terrorist organization now he was viewed as the leader of the so-called islamic state here in germany was accused of radicalizing and recruiting young people in germany and helping them travel to iraq and syria he's been sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison the conviction brings an end to a costly high security. let's get more on this story with iraqi journalist amir was so we he is here in berlin hi i'm here good to see you is the case the biggest action that's been taken against the so-called islamic state in germany so far. exactly stormy's so this is one of the significance of our courts in germany about islamic state activities in germany we are talking about 200 more than 240 days for the trial days 120 witnesses had

been listened with a whole total cost of $10000000.00. euros this is a service interesting course because it has to do with islamic state activities in germany and all all of that is has to would have had a wall up on how much of that as he's brought you russia which he's are one of the main figure of a stomach state in germany. i mean it's a trial that started 3 and a half years ago and you mentioned how much money was put into it i mean how much how difficult was it to gather evidence against apple law. it has to do with his activities with a warlock tippett is itself he was very not in the in the in the op in life not in the public life he was our trial he tried and he succeeded to or to cover his activities under the light there is no photos of him that is not videos about him

he was communicate in intelligent why with his followers he has an application for his followers and that's why it's make it difficult for the prosecutors here in germany to gather evidence they should listen to the some members of the members of a stomach state which has to do they have to do with up while up and this is the point because the lion of ottawa large right talk and sure put a many questions of that if it does come in from the stunning state then solve much i think that the court and fall are many of our evidence coming from police let's talk about his followers and he isn't a scene in germany because it has changed since i was arrested 5 years ago so how much of a threat does that still pose. exactly we were talking about it hostile

state stage we are talking about now not in the quantity of that before for an hour yes but we are talking about the quality of that sounds in germany i think it's still a dangerous and. then persecutors and the police and the authorities facing another kind of threats it is a quality of threats i think we have still dangerous in germany with some members of islamic states not and that's quality as we saw 5 years ago but i think another quality to use the communication in a different way in the smarter way i think this question is how many and whole long after it is going to invest a lot of it in gauging meant to follow that 1 that sense this is in washington i think there has been also examined and just discussed in the in the court itself

journalist i mean without speaking to us thank you. you're welcome. let's get a round of now some other headlines from around the world golf star tiger woods has undergone surgery for multiple leg injuries after being involved in a car accident in the u.s. city of los angeles the 45 year old woods had to be pulled from his vehicle after the crash the s.u.v. sustained major damage after rolling over it's understood woods was the only person in the car at the time. iran has officially started limiting international inspections of its nuclear facilities it will no longer share video footage of the sites with the u.n. nuclear watchdog and it will also restrict in person inspections of the facilities tehran is calling for the united states to lift economic sanctions imposed by former president trump. a court in malta has handed a 15 year jail sentence to

a man who pleaded guilty to murdering investigative journalist. she had been working to expose corruption among political and business elite when she was killed in a car bomb attack in 20173 other defendants are still awaiting trial. and astra zeneca will reportedly deliver less than half of the vaccines and promised the european union in the 2nd quarter of this year the drug maker is supposed to provide $180000000.00 doses to the e.u. by the end of june it has already missed its 1st quarter commitments due to production issues. for the 1st time german authorities have given approved a rapid code 19 tests for home use 3 products have been cleared by germany's medicines regulator until now rapid test could only be carried out by trained professionals in the country the health minister and spawn hopes the kits will play a central role in curbing the pandemic as lock down restrictions are eased she says more home test kits will be approved next week. course with

a mass testing plan for germany has already been rolled out in australia it is funny for char reports from vienna where rapid antigen tests are freely available and even compulsory for school students the opera house is one of the landmarks but unfortunately the only going pandemic locals are no longer coming here to enjoy a performance what they want is a rapid and teaching test and this is for example the spruce over there which by the way used to be a traditional viennese food stand. i need to get tested to. thank you very much well needless to say this was very uncomfortable but very quick to within minutes i will have a result this cost me 39 euros but there are hundreds of pharmacies. tested for

free but there you will need to wait a bit longer for the result and there are a lot of people here who are willing to get tested to get to speak and tests done in order to go to the hairdresser or to go to school because there are schools here in austria it's required twice a week to present such a test a negative called the test result of course to be able to participate at school currently $1000000.00 tests are carried out each week in austria one of the highest rates in the world says the government and the government hoops the more acceptable because to get tested the sooner the economy will be able to get back and to reopen. now a new report is calling for u.n. sanctions against sri lanka as former top generals for war crimes during the country's civil war for almost 3 decades stumble tigers separatists fought for an independent state for the ethnic minority more than 100000 people were killed in the war many of them civilians thousands more disappeared. this is the number of

days these mothers have been protesting for 4 years they've stood on the side of the road in the town of junia in the north of sri lanka. the women want to know where the children and husbands are they've been missing since the end of the civil war in 2009. jail when he took us in poli has also been here every day for 4 years she's looking for her daughter. that will learn a lot about it given that we need each other my suffering is also felt by these other mothers because of that i keep on fighting not only for my child but for only children and husbands who went missing we have to find out what happened to our children that all these mothers believe that their children and loved ones will return they can't lose their hope. 52 year old says she recognized her daughter in this photo from 2015 that apparently shows the girl standing next to form a sri lankan president much a palace or the santa. signifies

a spot here to initiate the mother's protest. the family belongs to the tamil minority during the last days of the civil war they were forced to leave their home and were taken to a camp run by sri lanka's secret service and interrogators on the way to win the tickets and polite says her daughter was kidnapped by whom is unclear. shortly before the end of the civil war in 2009 the sri lankan army combed tamil territory the soldiers were looking for fighters from the tamil tiger liberation organization or ltd who were fighting for independence according to the un both warring parties committed serious war crimes up to 15000 tamils are officially messick that the united nations believes the number to be much higher. it has been impossible for this family to find peace since their eldest child disappeared they have been to the police time and again and even called on the un refugee agency and the un human rights commission to get involved but in vain the neighborhood. it's very difficult

now that my wife stays in london for me at the protest site but i'm with her and thought all the time about them and i keep telling my wife to bring our daughter home. for the. order i'm convinced that my daughter is still alive for your. protest spicer lanka's tunnels growing. thousands took to the streets for 3 days in early february demanding the government clarify what happened to the countless mr sri lanka's current president got a biologic hoxha declared all missing persons to ceased in 2020 including the daughter of giovanni to supply. rajapakse that was the defense minister during the civil war the un commissioner for human rights lays the blame for alleged atrocities committed during that war on rajapaksa current army chief. during the women simply want to know what happened to their children so far no sri

lankan government has offered to help them. let's speak more about the story now with now about the un deputy high commissioner for human rights thank you so much for joining us here on w let's talk 1st of all about the measures that you are seeking in sri lanka what sort of sanctions are you calling for and what are they supposed to achieve. well 1st of all i mean i think the big worry is that these and by nations with unity without any sign of address to or for the victims so we are calling for 1st of all an enhanced one a training and strong preventive action by the international community i think this is essential for us to make sure that we don't slip further into more and more violations we just heard from this story their right to truth and justice for the victims i think this failure to deal with the past has had

a devastating impact on all the communities and so we want the international community to listen and need the early warning signs. time for international action to ensure there's justice investigations and prosecution in the national courts i think is one option certainly under the accepted principles of extraterritorial universal jurisdiction and targeted sanctions what we've seen before asset freezes travel ban against credibly and perpetrators are going to be important aspects and wondering what we're sponsor got you're anticipating here from the sri lankan government because it has maintained that it is not complicit in any disappearances or war crimes and that it doesn't recognize any foreign judges so what impact could these measures actually have. well i mean we have a very transparent relationship we published our report which will be discussed this afternoon in the council the high commissioner will present the report and

then we will open it up to it if there are active discussion and debate we're having gauge with the government they have read the report they have made their comments we've had discussions and i think we need to have a continued open dialogue as we do both in colombo and from here you see from new york is when i think we believe that unless we see specific action we have really many worrying trends over the past year or so what the government says and what it does need to be consistent there's been an increasing militarization of many governmental functions more intimidation of civil society very rapidly shrinking civic space many constitutional safeguards of inversed political obstruction of accountability and the use of anti terrorism laws i think we're looking to them things and there are many facts on the ground that speak to the inability or unwillingness to move forward if we talk about the violations that

you're tracing back to the conflict the war ended more than a decade ago why do you think it has taken so long to call out human rights abusers in sri lanka. well i mean i think this is always a complicated issue we need to have the facts we need to establish we need to have access i think to the many narratives that are going on and i think we believe that once they do that we really were making progress but i think these past couple of years have been very complicated for us particularly this last year and i think that demonstrates that inability and unwillingness of the government at this stage to deal with the parts to advance accountability in any meaningful way means that we have to consider international action and tool to ensure justice for international crimes we saw the emotional story of families looking for answers about their disappeared loved ones are you hopeful that there really is an opportunity here for them to find justice well i mean i think that's what

this house is all about and in the human rights council is really trying to underscore the moral imperative for justice international human rights are very and nor think if we can't we have drawn up many plans we have many prescriptions we know how we can make the situation better but it needs to start with owning up to what happened. ending this overview and punitive and really making this accountability stick where it needs to have to leave it there not at all nash if you end up in a commissioner for human rights thank you very much for joining us thank you for having me. to israel now and an ecological disaster a massive oil spill has hit most of israel's mediterranean shoreline leaving black sticky tar it's also cost extensive damage to wildlife correspondent tanya kramer reports the cleanup could take months even years. it's

a meticulous task clumps of tar 9 descend on israel's military coast one in tears and soldiers are cleaning the peaches by hand the old spill has been described as one of the worst environmental disasters in decades it is a fact that more than 170 kilometers of shoreline bemis give it does it give you tons of crude oil reach the beaches of israel from this so 3 student nurse and crucial ecological systems have going to thank don't these are big ships where. nature reserves the animals and plants living in the border have been affected by the summer have died she high about mine. the tar was detected after heavy winter storm last week because of the all spill most likely from a ship off the coast is currently being investigated but the case has been put under controversial media gag order. environmental activists have called the

disaster a wake up call for the government to put better environmental protections in place this group is out at sea to help with locating potential remnants and the water the overall effects of marine life assistance be assessed but for some it is too late like this turtle found over the weekend but it's not good time. and so we have a small ground turtle and you can see what the target did today and look at the extent of this disaster as a small turtle. doves but i'm sure not only the monologue. authorities say the cleanup operation could take a long time the tar sticks to rock and pollutes the sand volunteers are determined to do their part in the cleanup effort and they got a lot closer to i think it is important that every israeli who usually enjoys the

beach and they to it's important that we all come together and help with this mission it is a part of us. for now all the affected beaches have been closed to the public for an indefinite time. let's get a reminder now of our top stories on the new german court has found a former syrian secret service agent guilty of facilitating state sponsored torture in syria in the 1st trial of its kind the defendant was charged as an accomplice in the torture of opposition activists in 2011. and an iraqi preacher has been sentenced to 10 and a half years in a german prison for brad. allies ing and recruiting young people to fight for the so-called islamic state of the while is believed to be the group's de facto leader in germany. right off next to germany's economy and bounced back in the last quarter of 2020 despite the pandemic what does that mean for this year even

though it's lee is up next on did i mean business stay with us. mum.

vaccinations against the pandemic and so my case against time. it is business with the virus sure. will get the coveted. vaccination don't says the rich industrial nations already have a plan but what is the situation in india and africa. made in germany. 60 minutes d.w.

. first girl who could ever know for sure that it was already out. in some form. what's a view. over. to the river. and you hear me now years years we've been here you and how it all stands germantown so that when you bring your uncle out machall and you've never tried to have a surprise yourself with what is possible who is medical really what moves her and want. to talk to people who followed her along the way admirers and critics alike how is the world's most powerful woman shaping her legacy joining us from eccles law stops in. different on the islands of. here women are in charge.

archipelago as a matriarchal system for centuries. with the form of society to live differently. what do they do with their power. queens over the rainbow starts marching on t.w. . germany sees a bit of growth at the end of 2020 despite its long lockdown that's good news for europe's largest economy as a strives for recovery but cold comfort for the country's many small businesses which are fighting for survival. also want to show signs of life in spain to a shoppers at the winter sales but.