Muwafaq Dawah; A Butcher of the Palestinian Yarmouk Who Served Assad and Is Being Tried by Germany

The beginning of the fall of the armed elements loyal to the Regime of Bashar al-Assad, which fled to Europe, after the end of its roles in killing, extermination, rape and starvation of Syrians and Palestinian refugees for years.

The German authorities overthrew the “Free Palestine Movement” militia member, Muwafaq Dawah, on August 4, 2021. He tried on charges of committing war crimes in the Syrian Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees.

The events of Yarmouk camp, in which Dawah was involved, took place following the outbreak of the Syrian Revolution in 2011, specifically between 2013 and 2018.

Dawah's arrest comes within the framework of a prosecution campaign launched by Syrian opposition activists and human rights organizations, targeting a number of war criminals loyal to the Assad Regime and fleeing from Syria.

This human rights campaign also aims to bring the cases of these war criminals in front of the courts of European Union countries, which has already resulted in the arrest and trial of a number of them.

 

A Criminal of War

Muwafaq Dawah was placed in pretrial detention, after being brought in front of the investigating judge of the German Federal Court.

Members of the Berlin Regional Criminal Police Office searched the accused's home in the German capital on August 4, 2021.

The Public Prosecutor's Office at the Karlsruhe German Court declared that Dawah was responsible for the bombing of Yarmouk camp while a group of Palestinian refugees gathered to receive food aid in 2014.

A report published by the German magazine Der Spiegel on August 4, 2021, confirmed that “the Federal Prosecutor's Office has charged Dawah of committing war crimes and murder in 7 cases, and grievous bodily harm in 3 cases.”

The Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in Syria was subjected to a suffocating siege in 2013 and continued until the destruction of the camp in a large-scale military operation in 2018, which killed about 192 people.

That military operation involved the Syrian Regime and Palestinian factions, including: “General Command”, “Fatah” and “Intifada”, in addition to new militias such as “Free Palestine”.

The arrest of Muwafaq Dawah is not the first of its kind. In April 2021, a German court judged a former Syrian intelligence officer to 4 and a half years in prison, for complicity in committing crimes against humanity.

 

A Butcher of Yarmouk

Dawah, is a Palestinian and a member of “the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command,” and then in the “Free Palestine” militia loyal to the Assad Regime.

Both organizations contributed to the siege and bombing of the Syrian Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees from 2013 to 2018.

Activists in the camp described Dawah as a butcher of Yarmouk and accused him of war crimes.

Dawah, a resident of Yarmouk camp, and one of the criminals, was previously imprisoned several times for various crimes.

With the outbreak of the Syrian Revolution in 2011 and spread to Yarmouk camp and its surroundings. The beginning of Dawah came with the official of the internal branch in the camp, Abu Muhammad Sariya. 

Dawah participated in the suppression of demonstrators in the Al-Tadamon, Al-Zahra and Al-Midan areas.

That was until Dawah joined the popular committees inside the camp, which belonged to the “Popular Front” led by Ahmed Jibril.

Dawah was also one of the leaders of the fighting groups in the “Fight of the Shield of Al-Aqsa” militia led by Saed Abdel-Aal. It is the military wing of the “Free Palestine Movement” founded by Palestinian businessman Yasser Qashlaq.

 

 

 

Victims' Testimonies

Muwafaq Dawah, nicknamed Abu Akar, arrived in Germany years ago, impersonating a civilian fleeing war, after he is destroyed, abandoned, and starved of the Palestinian camp.

After he was the cause of the asylum and displacement of thousands of camp residents, and he committed many violations, whether murder or rape.

According to the testimony of one of the victims, Muwafaq Dawah led one of the armed groups to suppress demonstrations and protests in Yarmouk camp. 

He also participated with his group alongside Assad's forces by storming the camp and bombing civilians there.

His participation was documented in a video published by the “Free Palestine” militia, to which he belongs.

Residents of the camp accused Dawah of committing several crimes, including rape crimes of women from Yarmouk camp in the Al-Bashir Mosque.

Muwafaq al-Dawah, a Palestinian-Syrian militant based in Germany, was arrested and charged with war crimes, including firing an RPG at civilians in the Yarmouk camp during the distribution of humanitarian aid. He was a key figure for Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. pic.twitter.com/8OjwSAhUws

That mosque was used by the Syrian Regime and the Palestinian militias as a military barracks, after the siege was imposed on the camp.

As for the most prominent crimes that Dawah committed directly and deliberately against the civilians of the Yarmouk camp, he fired an RPG at a gathering of civilians in Rijah Square.

This was during the refugees’ receipt of aid and foodstuffs at the end of March 2014, as revenge for the killing of one of his relatives in battles with the Free Army inside the camp.

Dawah's crime against civilians resulted in the killing of 17 people and the injury of others.

Witnesses confirmed that Muwafaq Dawah, Mahmoud Qassem Suwaidan and Mufid Salam were among the participants in the “Ali al-Wahsh Street massacre” on January 5, 2014, which killed 250 people.

Where they were immediately executed, after guarantees were given to the besieged camp residents to get out of it, through the Ali al-Wahsh Street checkpoint, between the Hujaira and Babila areas in the southern Damascus countryside.