German jihadist on trial for war crimes

A 21-year-old German jihadist went on trial on Tuesday for war crimes in Syria after allegedly posing for photographs next to the severed heads of two victims of the conflict.

The trial in Frankfurt is the first in Germany for war crimes committed over the course of Syria’s five-year war.

The photographs, in which Aria Ladjedvardi appears, were taken in 2014 and posted on Facebook. Federal prosecutors believe he and two fellow fighters took the pictures to belittle their victims, whom they considered infidels.

Ladjedvardi, a German of Iranian origin, was arrested in October 2015 in the Frankfurt region, after police raided his apartment. He has since been in custody ever since.

He travelled to Syria in early 2014 to join one of the jihadist groups engaged in the fight against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

In Syria, he received weapons training, according to prosecutors.

Germany is also investigating 10 cases of alleged atrocities in Syria or Iraq, along with more than 30 cases of suspected membership of a terrorist group involving jihadists returning from the Middle East.

The investigations have gained momentum with the arrival of over a million asylum seekers, about 40 per cent of whom fled the wars in Syria and Iraq.

Asylum authorities have picked up and forwarded on average of 25 to 30 tip-offs a day to prosecutors, in line with requirement that applicants provide information on war crimes.