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Hannah El-Hitami

Germany - Correspondent

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Hannah El-Hitami

Hannah El-Hitami has covered the Al-Khatib trial and other universal jurisdiction cases in Germany extensively for JusticeInfo.Net since April 2020. She is an Egyptian-German journalist based in Berlin who writes mostly about sociopolitical topics from the Arab world, migration and postcolonial perspectives. She worked for the magazine of Amnesty International in Germany for two years, before starting as a freelancer in 2019. Her work has been published in Der Spiegel, Al Jazeera, Amnesty Journal, Zenith and others.

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Tadamon massacre in Syria: a trial in Germany - Photo: a street destroyed in the Tadamon neighbourhood, south of Damascus (Syria).
The 2013 Tadamon massacre looms over Germany’s latest Syria trial
25 July 2024 by Hannah El-Hitami (special envoy in Hamburg, Germany)
Videos of the Tadamon massacre of 2013, after being widely circulated on social networks, are being used as evidence in Germany’s latest universal jurisdiction trial. While defendant Ahmed H., a Syrian driver and alleged militiama [...]
Universal jurisdiction in Germany and international law. Photo: Trial of Iraqi Taha Al-Jumailly in Frankfurt. Trial and error: Germany reforms its law on international crimes
8 July 2024 by Hannah El-Hitami (our correspondent in Germany)
Through the use of universal jurisdiction, German authorities have prosecuted perpetrators of atrocity crimes in Syria, Gambia and Iraq. Now, the German parliament has passed a law to reform the Code of Crimes Against Internationa [...]
Trial of Bai Lowe in Germany for crimes committed in the Gambia (universal jurisdiction) “Someone had to sacrifice themselves”
28 November 2023 by Hannah El-Hitami (our correspondent in Germany)
Last Friday, a week before the verdict, the court in Celle heard the closing arguments of the defense and a final statement by Gambian defendant Bai Lowe. Both insisted on Lowe’s innocence and reiterated his claim that the self-in [...]
Bai Lowe is on trial in Germany for crimes committed in the Gambia. - Photo: Lowe enters the courtroom accompanied by police officers. “Bai Lowe tried to make amends for something beyond repair”
23 November 2023 by Hannah El-Hitami (our correspondent in Germany)
The trial for crimes against humanity of Gambian Bai Lowe in Celle, Germany, is about to end. On the 16th and 17th of November, the prosecution and joint plaintiffs gave their closing statements. As a driver for former President Y [...]
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Enforced disappearances: Germany seeks its place in international law - A relative of Syrian victims demonstrates outside the Koblenz court.
25 August 2023 by Hannah El-Hitami
Enforced disappearances and the German contradiction Last June, Germany was among 83 states supporting the creation of a UN body on missing persons in Syria. And yet it does not itself have the crime of enforced disappearance in its national criminal code, and a fruitless definition [...]
Court in Berlin where Moafak D is tried for war crimes in Syria.
20 February 2023 by Hannah El-Hitami
Syrian war crime trial in Berlin: a late alibi for defense Last Thursday, 16 February, in Berlin, Germany, Palestinian Syrian militiaman Moafak D.’s defense gave their final statements and called for his acquittal. They argued their client had been injured and bedridden at the time of the [...]
Yarmouk camp in Damascus (Syria)
14 February 2023 by Hannah El-Hitami
Syria: Berlin prosecutors urge life sentence in war crimes trial In a German court, a former militiaman from Syria is accused of firing a grenade into a crowd of civilians gathered to collect food, in March 2014. The attack took place during a Bashar al-Assad regime’s months-long siege of the P [...]
In a street whose buildings are completely devastated (Yarmouk district in Damascus, Syria), a distribution of food aid is organized for many refugees
9 January 2023 by Hannah El-Hitami
Patrick Kroker: “They saw injuries nobody could have survived” In Berlin, a former militia member from Syria is accused of war crimes for firing a grenade into a group of civilians in Damascus in 2014. The trial is the third in Germany to prosecute crimes of the Bashar al-Assad regime. Lawyer [...]
Baboucar
21 October 2022 by Hannah El-Hitami
Gambian trial in Germany: I posed as a “Jungler”, defendant says On Thursday 20 October, Baboucar “Bai” Lowe has given his first statement in six month of trial in Germany. The Gambian national, an alleged member of a notorious killing squad called the “Junglers” accused of crimes against human [...]
Bai Lowe (a
2 June 2022 by Hannah El-Hitami
Gambian trial in Germany: the thin line between witness and suspect In Celle, Germany, a former member of Gambia’s notorious “Junglers” is accused of crimes against humanity. One of his former comrades, with a very similar background, was expected to come as a witness to shed light on the death sq [...]
A doctor holds a bloodstained open book in a hospital
1 February 2022 by Hannah El-Hitami,
Germany: When Syrian doctors became part of Assad’s terror In Frankfurt, Germany, a Syrian doctor is accused of crimes against humanity. He is said to have tortured 18 prisoners in Syria’s military hospitals, depriving two of their ability to reproduce, and killing one. Dr. Alaa Moussa ha [...]
2 Syrian victims and activists demonstrate with signs outside the court in Koblenz, Germany, following the trial of Anwar Raslan
20 January 2022 by Hannah El-Hitami
Anwar Raslan's conviction: "The beginning of a wider struggle" In Koblenz, Germany, the al-Khatib trial has ended with a life sentence for main defendant Anwar Raslan. The judges found the ex-intelligence officer responsible for torture and killing in Damascus security branch 251. The defence [...]
Anwar Raslan during his trial in Koblenz, Germany
10 January 2022 by Hannah El-Hitami
Defence: “Raslan did whatever he could to help” The final verdict in the first state torture trial for Syria is expected on January 13, in Koblenz, Germany. Last Thursday, the defence pleaded for Anwar Raslan’s innocence. The former secret service officer himself made a final s [...]
Syrian Colonel Anwar Raslan handcuffed during his trial in Koblenz (Germany)
6 January 2022 by Hannah El-Hitami
Prosecution: "Raslan was either powerless, or he wasn’t" Today on January 6, the defense will make its closing arguments before the court in Koblenz, Germany. The trial against former Syrian secret service colonel Anwar Raslan is coming to an end. In December, the prosecution and joint [...]
A woman and young Yezidi refugee girls
7 December 2021 by Hannah El-Hitami
Germany: First conviction for genocide against the Yazidi In the German city of Frankfurt, Iraqi national Taha al-J. has been sentenced to life in prison for the death of a young Yazidi girl he enslaved. It is the first time worldwide that a court convicts a member of the organization Is [...]
Anwar Raslan in the dock in Koblenz (Al-Khatib trial), Germany
5 November 2021 by Hannah El-Hitami
Syrian torture trial in Germany: “Raslan was scared” As the first Syrian state crimes trial in Europe is coming to an end, it is the defence’s turn to show the main defendant, Anwar Raslan, in a different light. They presented a man stripped of real authority, sympathetic to the rev [...]
Exterior view of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin
11 October 2021 by Hannah El-Hitami
A castle full of stolen goods Germany is the first country in Europe to announce the return of its share of Benin Bronzes to Nigeria by 2022. Thousands of these art pieces were looted by the British in the late 19th century. But while negotiations about the pr [...]
The hands of a Syrian doctor with blood on his scrubs
8 July 2021 by Hannah El-Hitami
Syrian trial in Germany: the role of doctors and hospitals in the Assad regime’s prison system In the Al-Khatib trial in Koblenz, Germany, a doctor testified about treating prisoners in the Syrian Secret Service’s Branch 251. He reported severe injuries, and deaths on an almost daily basis. But while he was tasked with impr [...]
Demonstration in Damas, Syria
29 April 2021 by Hannah El-Hitami
At the Syrian trial in Germany, personal encounters with Colonel Raslan In Germany, the first trial on crimes by the Syrian regime has entered its second year. After establishing the structural context in which the crimes were committed, the court is now focusing on the individual role of the accused [...]
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