The story of the German “ISIS man”: a godfather of murder and torture
After years of impunity, a German man has been convicted of murder while working for ISIS in Syria.
- The victims of the Al-Hamdeen organization.. This is how Qatar is designed for a “big prison”
- Houthi official has been accused of rising prisoners’ suffering in the country’s central prison in Sanaa
The Düsseldorf High Regional Court convicted German national Nils Dunath, 31, to 10 years in prison after torturing a prisoner to death in Syria.
This is the first conviction against ISIS in Germany for a murder committed in Syria or Iraq when he joined the terrorist group ISIS, Germany’s Bild reported.
In 2016, the man was initially sentenced to four and a half years in prison for joining ISIS, being a member of the group’s “break-in” group that was arresting alleged opponents in Syria, and transporting them to torture cells.
At the time, the Düsseldorf court could not prove Dunath’s involvement in torture and murder, only proving his membership in the break-in squad.
German investigators could not believe Dunath’s assertions that he was not involved in torture or murder, but they could not provide evidence to convict him.
Moreover, Dunath was pardoned for four and a half years after giving a court testimony against two German men who played leading roles in ISIS in Syria.
In 2016, Germany’s Bild newspaper managed to reach a Syrian witness who directly condemned Dunath for torture and murder. Witness Mohamed A. was imprisoned in a prison in the northern Syrian city of Manbij and saw how Donath tortured a man to death.
“In 2019, the Federal Prosecutor indicted Dunath for torture, murder, and war crimes, based on the testimony of the Syrian man”.
The main witness named another witness who had been with him in the same prison, Mahmoud S., who had moved to life in Germany. The latter was able to testify in the German court after initially hesitating for fear of facing his executioner.
During the course of the investigations, German police investigators conducted extensive searches to trace other witnesses who were imprisoned in the same prison at the time of Dunath’s 2014 crimes, and indeed succeeded in finding other witnesses who directly convicted the German man.
Judge Jean van Liesen, for his part, explicitly commended the police officers and in particular the investigation team for the case. “Without these years of meticulous work, it would not have been possible to have a trial”, he said.
The court recorded a series of crimes committed by Dunath in Manbij prison in 2014, most notably beating a Kurdish prisoner in the courtyard to deter his fellow prisoners, beating another prisoner with a stick until the stick was broken, and the victims presented testimony against the German man in court.
He was also convicted of beating a prisoner accused of cigarette smuggling, and then locking him in a small cell of 50 x 50 cm, standing, for several days.
He was also convicted of hanging a prisoner from his hands and feet and then electrocuting him, and beating another prisoner in the prison yard until he could no longer walk.
The killing occurred in prison in July 2014, when ISIS terrorists were torturing two young brothers who had fought for the Free Syrian Army, one of the victims, Hassan N., who was crying out of agony and cursing ISIS, and the executioners interpreted Hassan’s insults as a departure from religion. Dunath and three other terrorists then beat the victim to death.
