Austrian prosecutors on Wednesday indicted former Syrian Brig. Gen. Khaled al-Halabi, accusing him of overseeing torture and other serious abuses while leading Raqqa’s state security branch from 2011 to 2013 during Syria’s civil war.
According to The New York Times, citing prosecutors, the 62-year-old member of Syria’s Druze minority from Sweida allegedly acted as a double agent for Israel’s Mossad before fleeing Syria in 2013. Investigators say Mossad and Austrian intelligence officials helped him relocate from Paris to Vienna, where he sought refuge.
Al-Halabi—considered among the most senior Assad-era officials to face war-crimes charges in Europe and the first to be indicted in Austria—has been in custody since December 2024. Prosecutors said independent investigators tracked him down using a social-media photograph showing him on a bridge in Budapest, Hungary. A second former Syrian officer, Lt. Col. Musab Abu Rukbah, 53, was also charged.
Through their attorneys, both men denied abusing detainees. The charges relate to alleged crimes committed in Raqqa between 2011 and 2013, during the Arab Spring uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which was overthrown in December 2024.
Al-Halabi led Branch 335 in Raqqa, overseeing the crackdown when protests erupted in 2011. Austrian prosecutors say 21 victims have been identified, some of whom described repeated beatings and electric shocks.
