German prosecutors announced Thursday that a Syrian national accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes through torture and enslavement between 2012 and 2015 has been arrested. The investigating judge presiding over the matter ordered the man detained pending trial.

The Syrian national, known only as ‘Ahmad H.,’ was arrested by Officers of the Federal Criminal Police Force’s Bremen office. In their statement, prosecutors alleged that the defendant operated within a pro-government militia that performed torture, killings and extortion in Syria. Prosecutors say that the militia was responsible for the 2013 Tadamon Massacre, a mass execution of at least 41 people in Damascus’ Tadamon neighborhood. Prosecutors also stated that:

The accused personally participated in the abuse of civilians on various occasions. In one incident in 2013, he slapped a man detained by the militia in the face and instructed other members of the group to brutally beat the detainee with plastic pipes for hours. In autumn 2014, Ahmad H., together with other militiamen and employees of the Syrian military intelligence service, repeatedly punched and kicked a civilian at a checkpoint. The accused grabbed the victim’s hair and slammed his head onto the sidewalk. He then tied the man up before he was taken away by the militia. Between December 2012 and early 2015, the suspect arrested 25 to 30 people at a checkpoint in two cases and forced them to transport sandbags to the nearby front for a day. There the prisoners worked under repeated fire and without a supply of food and water. They were also beaten by the accused and other militia members.

The provisions under which Ahmad H. was arrested were sections 7 and 8 of the Code of Crimes against International Law and section 25  of the Criminal Code. Germany created the Code of Crimes against International Law in 2002. This code authorizes the prosecution of offenses such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, even if “the offence was committed abroad and bears no relation to Germany.”

German prosecutors said the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office issued an arrest warrant for the man after a hearing of the Federal Court of Justice on July 26th.