Trial in Vienna: Three Alleged Victims Testify Against Former Syrian Regime Representatives

The first of the three witnesses reported having helped organize demonstrations against the Assad regime in Raqqa in the spring of 2011. In the same year, he was arrested in Raqqa and taken blindfolded to the intelligence building. There, Al Halabi's staff from the General Intelligence Service had ordered him to undress and struck him on his heels with cables. Al Halabi himself had personally interrogated him, demanded his phone's passcode, slapped him, and threatened him with torture and with violence against his daughter and wife. The brigadier general had wanted to know from him whether he was a member of the opposition and when the next demonstration would take place.

During the interrogation, Al Halabi had pointed to the torture device known as the "Flying Carpet" and threatened to use it if the witness did not confess. Afterward, he was transferred to Damascus and tortured for another eight days. "I am still afraid today," the witness said in the courtroom. A forensic medical statement also notes that during a "Flying Carpet" procedure, the victim heard his own back crack: "I heard my back crack."

The "Flying Carpet" as a Torture Device

Judges showed a photo of the "Flying Carpet" during the proceedings – a folding wooden board on which victims are fixed and bent forward and backward in order to inflict severe spinal injuries. The "Flying Carpet" – a torture device to which detainees were strapped and then beaten – was also used in the cells.

The second witness, who was only 18 years old and still a schoolboy at the time of his arrest in 2012, traveled from the Netherlands to describe, in closed court, the torments inflicted on him at the criminal police, where Musab A. worked as an investigator. He was arrested multiple times, he reported. Guards had beaten him with batons and rifle butts, including in the genital area, and kicked him in the face with military boots. Abou R. had broken one of his fingers by stepping on his hand, and had flooded the cell with water.

A private expert opinion diagnosed the second witness with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and sexual dysfunction. The first witness was also diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

Reactions in the Courtroom

A third witness described having been arrested and abused multiple times between 2011 and 2013 at the criminal police because he had participated in demonstrations. The then-18-year-old witness was tortured there with sticks, cables, and kicks. A. was present during the majority of the abuses, also struck the witness himself, and, among other things, let electrified water flow into his solitary cell. The witness was also held and abused twice in a cell at the General Intelligence facility led by Al Halabi. He reported a particularly brutal staff member who beat him repeatedly, also in Al Halabi's presence. "I believe that Mussab A. can remember me well. Today the roles are reversed," he said, addressing the defendants.

A.'s defense attorney repeatedly questioned during cross-examination whether the witness could recognize A., since his eyes had been blindfolded most of the time and he had not been able to identify A. in a later photo array. The co-defendant, metalworker Moussab Abou R., is currently at liberty. He denied knowing the witness, answering the question: "No, I swear." The witness summed up his interrogation with the words: "It was a reception."

Al Halabi claimed to know the witness only from photos, although he did recall the arrest. He also described the reported behavior of his staff as "unlikely." Al Halabi had previously claimed not to know of such a torture device, which had been documented at his post. During the witness's testimony, the defendant Khaled al-Halabi stared straight ahead and avoided any eye contact with the witness.

Background: Intelligence Services and the Suppression of the Protests

After the demonstrations broke out in the spring of 2011, Syria's four intelligence services had joined forces to suppress the protests. According to witnesses, Al Halabi's authority served as a way station for further torture in Damascus – although abuses also took place at the general's own post. According to the witnesses' testimony on Monday, the defendants were also personally involved in the violence that escalated as a result.

Khaled Al H., the former head of intelligence branch 335, was brought to Austria in 2015 in an operation called "White Milk" by officers of the now-dissolved Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism (BVT) in cooperation with the Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad. Al Halabi has been held in pretrial detention in Josefstadt since December 2024. In the witness stand were those who accuse them of being responsible for their torture after the outbreak of the civil war. For the first time in the trial, which began last week, of high-ranking regime representatives of the fallen Assad dictatorship, three alleged victims testified. The trial will continue on Tuesday. (Muzayen Al-Youssef, Flora Mory, 8.6.2026)