German court lengthens Syrian kidnapper's jail term
A German appeals court Wednesday lengthened
the jail term for a Syrian refugee found guilty of war crimes and taking part
in the kidnapping of a Canadian UN peacekeeper.
The defendant, named only as Suliman al-S., 28, was sentenced to four years
and nine months for the 2013 abduction carried out in Damascus by an Islamist militant group.
German prosecutors had appealed against a more lenient prison term of three
and a half years that the Stuttgart court had handed down in September 2017.
Suliman al-S. arrived in Germany as a refugee in 2014 and was later granted
asylum.
In January 2016 he became the first Syrian to be arrested in Germany for
war crimes committed in his homeland.
The Stuttgart court in September 2017 found him guilty of war crimes and aiding and abetting the abduction of UN observer Carl Campeau.
Campeau, a veteran UN legal advisor, has written a book about his ordeal at
the hands of the Al-Qaeda linked Nusra Front, which demanded a seven-million-dollar ransom for their captive.
Campeau, who had been stationed in the Golan Heights with the UN
Disengagement Observer Force, has said he was abused and forced to convert to Islam by his captors before, after eight months in captivity, he managed to
escape.
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The defendant, named only as Suliman al-S., 28, was sentenced to four years
and nine months for the 2013 abduction carried out in Damascus by an Islamist militant group.
German prosecutors had appealed against a more lenient prison term of three
and a half years that the Stuttgart court had handed down in September 2017.
Suliman al-S. arrived in Germany as a refugee in 2014 and was later granted
asylum.
In January 2016 he became the first Syrian to be arrested in Germany for
war crimes committed in his homeland.
The Stuttgart court in September 2017 found him guilty of war crimes and aiding and abetting the abduction of UN observer Carl Campeau.
Campeau, a veteran UN legal advisor, has written a book about his ordeal at
the hands of the Al-Qaeda linked Nusra Front, which demanded a seven-million-dollar ransom for their captive.
Campeau, who had been stationed in the Golan Heights with the UN
Disengagement Observer Force, has said he was abused and forced to convert to Islam by his captors before, after eight months in captivity, he managed to
escape.
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