A leading Kurdish organisation in Germany has filed a criminal complaint accusing Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa of genocide and other international crimes, prompting scrutiny from federal prosecutors just days after he was warmly received by top German officials.
The Kurdish Community in Germany (KGD) said it submitted the complaint to the Federal Public Prosecutor in Karlsruhe, alleging al-Sharaa—widely known under his former nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Jolani—is responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and leading terrorist organisations.
The move follows Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul’s unusually cordial reception of al-Sharaa during a visit to Syria last week, where the minister clasped the Syrian leader’s upper arm as they shook hands. Wadephul later said the return of Syrian refugees from Germany remained “unreasonable.”
KGD deputy chair Mehmet Tanriverdi said the group acted on behalf of families whose relatives were killed by jihadist militias. It accuses al-Sharaa of bearing “co-responsibility for the genocide against Yazidi Kurds in 2014 and for ongoing, systematic violence against minorities in Syria and Iraq.”
German courts in Frankfurt (2021), Koblenz (2022), and Munich (2024) have recognised the Islamic State’s attacks on the Yazidis in Sinjar as genocide. International organisations and UN reports have long identified al-Sharaa — then operating as al-Jolani — as a senior figure within IS during the August 2014 massacres, when thousands were abducted, enslaved, tortured, raped, or killed.
The KGD also accuses al-Sharaa of further crimes after his break with Islamic State. His later group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and allied militias allegedly carried out mass rights abuses, including the expulsion and dispossession of Kurds in Afrin, violence against Alawite civilians in March 2025, and attacks on the Druze population in southern Syria in summer 2025.
The case is being brought under Germany’s universal jurisdiction provisions, which allow the prosecution of serious international crimes regardless of where they were committed.
The complaint comes amid diplomatic overtures from Berlin. On Tuesday, Chancellor Friedrich Merz invited al-Sharaa to Germany for talks, including on refugee returns. The KGD warned that such a visit would be “highly troubling,” asking how Germany could pursue criminal action while hosting a “suspected war criminal.”
The group said it has also requested an international arrest warrant be activated should al-Sharaa travel to Germany.
