(AP) A Swedish judge on Thursday acquitted a former Syrian army general of indiscriminate attacks on civilians in his home country more than a decade ago, saying prosecutors failed to provide evidence of his involvement in the war crimes.
Brig. Gen. Mohammed Hamo, who now lives in Sweden, was charged in February with aiding and abetting crimes against international law. Prosecutors said that as head of the Ordnance Department of the Syrian Army’s 11th Division, he was responsible for providing the weapons that were used to commit war crimes in 2012.
The prosecutor alleged that Hamo, described by Swedish news agency TT as the highest-ranking officer to stand trial in a European court for such crimes in Syria, had participated in the division’s indiscriminate attacks on military and civilian targets in the Syrian cities of Homs and Hama.
