The Higher Regional Court in Koblenz, Germany, on Wednesday convicted former Syrian General Intelligence Directorate (GID) officer Eyad A. of aiding and abetting torture and deprivation of liberty as crimes against humanity committed against 30 persons. Eyad received a sentence of four years and six months in prison.

The 30 persons, who were all civilians, had been participating in anti-government protests in Syria’s Douma in 2011 when they were rounded up and sent in a bus to Branch 251, or the al-Khatib detention center in Damascus. At Branch 251, they suffered grave physical, emotional and psychological abuse, in addition to being subjected to inhumane and degrading conditions. The court found that a widespread and systematic attack was carried out against them. It stated that “Eyad A. had already known about the regular and systematic torture in the prison of department 251 when the demonstrators were arrested and had accepted the torture of the detainees. He also expected that the torture was part of a planned, organized action by the government to suppress opposition forces.”

Eyad defected from Syria in 2012 and sought asylum in Germany in 2018, where he was arrested the next year. His trial began in April, and employed universal jurisdiction to prosecute the crimes, provided for by the German Code of Crimes Against International Law. In the months leading up to the ruling, the court considered testimonies of multiple former Branch 251 detainees, as well as thousands of photographs of tortured detainees.

Eyad had argued that he was compelled to obey his superior’s orders for fear of punishment and that he did not carry out the orders to shoot the detainees. While determining the sentence, the court also considered that he had provided significant evidence against himself in 2018.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 88,000 civilians have died as a result of torture in state-run jails since the beginning of the civil war. The Syrian Network for Human Rights estimates that 130,000 people are currently held in detention centers.

Wednesday’s development marks the first time that a court, worldwide, has ruled on torture inflicted by the Syrian regime, and it sets the stage for the prosecution of high-ranking officers. The trial of the officer who headed Branch 251 is pending before the same court in Germany.