A German court on Monday sentenced a former Syrian military doctor to life in prison for torturing and killing opponents of the former regime leader Bashar Assad.

Alaa M., 40, was found guilty of crimes against humanity for killing two people and torturing nine others between 2011 and 2012, while he was working as an assistant doctor in military hospitals.

According to prosecutors, the accused entered Germany in 2015 amid a large-scale migration of Syrians fleeing the civil war and established himself as an orthopedist. He was arrested in 2020 when witnesses identified him in a television documentary about the Syrian city of Homs.

The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court ruled the case warranted exceptional gravity of guilt and mandated preventive detention beyond the prison sentence, with a life sentence in Germany typically meaning a minimum of 15 years, though most prisoners serve 20 to 25 years before parole eligibility.

Germany’s unique legislation, the “Code of Crimes against International Law,” gives courts universal jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity, allowing them to launch a full investigation even if the crimes were committed outside of German territory.