One of Bashar al-Assad’s personal bodyguards has reportedly claimed refugee status in Germany, despite being involved in perpetrating heinous crimes against Syrian dissidents, even arresting and handing over members of his own family to Assad's forces to be punished for their participation in anti-regime demonstrations.

According to reports from El Dorar Shamiya news agency, the regime insider, named as Alaa Adel Khalil (circled in larger photo and seen in inset), who originally came from the city of Qamishli, was a zealously loyal shabih (plainclothes regime agent) who arrested a number of his own relatives, friends and acquaintances and handed them over to regime authorities for participating in anti-regime demonstrations, despite being aware that they would probably be tortured and very possibly killed in regime custody for expressing dissent.
Khalil, who reportedly lived in the Shaalan neighbourhood of Damascus up until 2014, also recruited other relatives and acquaintances into the ranks of the regime shabiha.

His zealous support for Assad quickly caught the attention and admiration of his peers and regime officials, who appointed him as one of Assad’s personal bodyguards, and he was subsequently sent on a training course in Russia for training in security and military tactics involved in guarding senior officials.

Sources also told El Dorar al Shamiya that Khalil had been among the regime personnel involved in a massacre of civilian detainees at a regime checkpoint, as well as participating in regime military campaigns.
The report, also substantiated by media outlet Zaman al Wasl, further indicated that after fleeing to Germany posing as a refugee, Khalil had attempted to delete all incriminating photos of himself acting as a bodyguard to Bashar al-Assad, although this effort was unsuccessful, as the photos published by El Dorar al Shamiya and seen here show.

According to the El Dorar al Shamiya report, Khalil went to Germany in 2014 under the pretext of fleeing the war, denying any membership of militias in Syria, and initially living in the German city of Cologne.

The Sada al-Sharqiya network has previously revealed the arrival in Europe of other regime shabiha, including Jihad Khalaf al-Fathi, a member of the military judiciary (a kangaroo court set up to target dissidents), who stole large sums of money extorted from displaced refugees and families of detainees in Syria.

Hundreds of officers in Assad’s army who are accused of committing war crimes have fled Syria for European countries, especially Germany, believing that they can escape accountability and prosecution there.

- El Dorar al Shamiya, Zaman al Wasl