(Courthouse News) A Dutch court on Friday found a Syrian asylum-seeker guilty of committing war crimes in Syria and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
The District Court of The Hague found that Ahmad al Khedr had participated in the execution of a Syrian government official in 2012, a killing that was captured on video.
“The court places extra weight on the special circumstances that the execution took place in a country where a non-international armed conflict was occurring,” Presiding Judge Jan van Steen said in court Friday.
Al Khedr was prosecuted under the Netherlands’ universal jurisdiction law, which gives Dutch authorities the right to pursue charges against people who commit genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, regardless of where in the world the crimes take place.
