Germany issues arrest warrant for top Assad ally: report

German prosecutors have issued an international arrest warrant for a top Syrian intelligence officer accused of overseeing the torture and murder of hundreds of detainees, a media report said today.

German news weekly Der Spiegel said Jamil Hassan, the head of Syria's notorious airforce intelligence directorate and a close ally of President Bashar al-Assad, was wanted on charges of crimes against humanity.

The magazine described the warrant for Hassan's arrest as "the most serious effort yet by a Western country" to hold Assad's regime accountable for crimes committed against Syrians since a 2011 uprising sparked a brutal civil war. The German federal prosecutor's office declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

Spiegel said prosecutors are alleging that 64-year-old Hassan authorised his officers to "beat, rape, torture and kill" hundreds of prisoners in Syrian government detention facilities between 2011 and 2013.\\