German court convicts man over deadly 2014 attack in Syria

February 23, 2023   

(AP) A German court on Thursday convicted a Palestinian man from Syria of a war crime and murder for launching a grenade into a crowd of civilians waiting for food in Damascus in 2014. He was sentenced to life in prison.

The 55-year-old, identified only as Moafak D. in line with German privacy rules, was arrested in 2021 in Berlin, where he had been living as a refugee. His trial opened in August.

The German capital’s district court found that the defendant on March 23, 2014, fired a grenade from an anti-tank weapon into the crowd in the Yarmouk district of Damascus, killing four people and seriously wounding two others.

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