Syrian convicted in Austria of civil war abuses is detained in Syria

Musab Abu Rukbah, right, and Roman Valach, one of Abu Rukbah’s lawyers, leave a courtroom after a hearing in Vienna on June 8, 2026. Abu Rukbah, a former police chief, left Austria after appealing his eight-year sentence for crimes committed during Syria’s civil war. (Marylise Vigneau/The New York Times)

By CARLOTTA GALL and HUSSAM HAMMOUD

When a court in Vienna last month convicted two former Syrian officials of abuses during their country’s civil war, the case was celebrated as a groundbreaking pursuit of justice for victims of the fallen Syrian dictatorship.

But weeks later, one of those convicted, Musab Abu Rukbah, a former police chief, left Austria and traveled back to Syria after appealing his eight-year sentence. Now the Syrian government has announced it has arrested him.

Syria’s Internal Security Forces said on Saturday they had detained Abu Rukbah as part of “ongoing security operations to prosecute those involved in terrorism cases and take the necessary legal action against them.” The arrest came after reports that he had returned to his hometown, Nawa, in the southern province of Daraa.

Abu Rukbah, 54, had not been deemed a flight risk by a higher court in Vienna and was free while the appeal process was underway, Christina Salzborn, vice president of the Regional Court of Vienna, said earlier this month.

Abu Rukbah had been released without conditions after a brief detention at the time of his indictment in January 2025, and he was not under any reporting requirements, travel ban or obligation to surrender his passport, Salzborn said.

But earlier this month, after Syrian activists posted on social media that they had learned of Abu Rukbah’s return, a lawyer representing victims in the case against him said she had applied for an international arrest warrant. The lawyer, Tatiana Urdaneta Wittek, is the director of the Center for the Enforcement of Human Rights International, a nonprofit organization in Vienna.

Urdaneta Wittek said this month that Abu Rukbah’s return to Syria was grounds enough for an arrest warrant to be issued, though she also noted that Syria does not have an extradition treaty with Austria. A hearing date for Abu Rukbah’s appeal had not been set.

“With his escape to Syria, he is withdrawing from the proceedings before they are final,” Urdaneta Wittek said.

The court in Austria has made no public announcement about any warrant for Abu Rukbah’s arrest. Earlier this month, Roman Valach, a lawyer who represented Abu Rukbah at the trial, declined to comment on his whereabouts.

Urdaneta Wittek and Valach could not immediately be reached for comment on Saturday after the announcement of Abu Rukbah’s arrest.

His return home is a test for Syria’s government, which is struggling to deliver justice for the hundreds of thousands of victims of the country’s civil war, 18 months after overthrowing the dictatorship of Bashar Assad.

Urdaneta Wittek’s application for a warrant, which was seen by The New York Times, said that an investigative group specializing in international justice cases, Arctic Wind Solutions, had confirmed with the Syrian border authorities that Abu Rukbah had crossed into Syria early on the morning of July 29.

Abu Rukbah’s apparent escape was an embarrassment for the Austrian authorities and a blow to his many victims after a 10-year investigation of him and a former intelligence official, Khaled Halabi.

Asyad Almousa, who was among those who testified against Abu Rukbah in Vienna, said before the announcement of his arrest that a whole new case now had to be built in Syria. “We are starting from zero,” he said, “which means years more of agonizing judicial process.”

Abu Rukbah and Halabi had claimed asylum in Austria after arriving in 2015, several years after the start of Syria’s civil war. They were convicted, in a rarity there, under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows a country to prosecute individuals for grave crimes committed elsewhere.

Twenty Syrian survivors testified against the two former officials during the trial, describing harrowing details of lasting physical and psychological trauma at their hands.

Halabi was convicted of torture and other crimes. Abu Rukbah was convicted on charges that included aggravated coercion and sexual coercion. Both men were sentenced to eight years in prison and lodged appeals through their lawyers.

“I feel a deep sadness seeing this happen,” said Almousa. “Years of demanding our rights went into the wind because of the Austrian justice system’s carelessness. How was a man sentenced to eight years let go, free and not monitored?”