Radwan Safar Jalani on survivor testimony and the pursuit of justice

Radwan Safar Jalani is a Syrian survivor, human rights advocate, and key witness in several universal jurisdiction trials concerning war crimes committed during the Syrian conflict. Recently, he was a witness in a case, held in front of French courts, regarding the hostage taking, torture and killing of journalists in Syria in 2013.

The interview was conducted by Christla Petitberghien, Elyse Galloway, Haley Vandall, Kian Khalili, Patricia Cordova Munaqui (2025).

---

The interview was conducted in the spring of 2025 and has been edited for clarity.

In your opinion, what is the role of representation in trials for victims, and can victims ever be fully served if judges and attorneys come from a completely different background?

If we only look at the final outcome of the case, we can say that the French court fulfilled its legal function. The defendants were tried, convicted, and sentenced — that in itself is an achievement. Part of the goal was met. Those who committed crimes were held accountable, and questions did not go unanswered.

If we move beyond the legal structure and ask a deeper question — who represents whom? And who truly understands whom? — then we begin to see the gap. The defendants in this case were not Syrian; they were French. They lived and studied in France. They held French citizenship. Maybe their radicalization was shaped by experiences they had in France itself. In that sense, it made perfect sense that the trial was led by French judges and lawyers, people who understood that social and cultural background. But the crimes themselves did not happen in Paris. They happened in Syria — in the basements of Aleppo, in the prisons of Raqqa, in underground chambers that every Syrian knows by heart. That is where people were tortured, disappeared, where a new kind of violence was born.

That is where, I believe, the court missed something essential: the representation of the Syrian context — the place, the language, the memory, the street names, the nicknames — those very details of life and death.

I saw with my own eyes how some of the judges and lawyers struggled to pronounce Arabic names and kunyas, not just because of the language, but because they had never lived the experience. For example, they did not know who Abu Ammar or Abu Omar was. Maybe when I say it in Arabic, it sounds different. But when you say it or read it in a foreign language, it might seem the same — but it is not. They had not heard those names whispered through the walls of a torture cell. In my view, victims cannot be fully served if their culture and human presence are missing from the courtroom.

The trial can still deliver a legal verdict, and yes, we can still win the case on paper. But if we are not understood — if we are not present with our language, our voices, and our memory — then justice remains incomplete.

The French trial was a necessary first step, in my opinion. But it did not reach the full depth of the Syrian experience. Maybe if more Syrian witnesses had been called, if our dialects had been heard in the courtroom, if images of the places where we lived had been shown on the walls — then maybe, just maybe, the trial would have been whole, or at least closer to it.

How did it feel to see your personal memories and lived experience become crucial evidence in the courtroom? And what does it tell us about the importance of including survivor knowledge in future justice cases?

To answer your question, I will recall one moment that happened in the courtroom. In one of the hearings, the judge asked me a question that stayed with me for a long time. He said: How is it that you were the only one who recognized the defendant inside the prison, even though four French journalists were also detained there? My answer was simple, but behind it were years of watching and surviving. I told him: the foreign hostages had their own private bathrooms in their rooms. They did not need to be escorted in and out of their cells each day. We, as Syrians, were taken to the bathroom every day under armed guard. In those moments, I saw the guards. I heard their voices. I memorized their faces — not because I was investigating them, but because I was trying to survive. The same thing happened with details that seemed meaningless at the time but turned out to be critical.

Another story: one detainee once told me that a prison guard — he was talking about Si Lin Galim — had transported him in a van. At first, I was. not sure about it. But later, in the courtroom, Si Lin’s wife confirmed under oath that yes, he used to drive a van. Those small details helped the courtroom so much.

Throughout the trial, I tried to share everything I knew — even things I had not witnessed directly but had heard from other detainees before or after me. We connected places to names, dates to voices, accents to behaviors. And little by little, those painful memories — which I used to think were just a personal burden — became evidence, and became a key that helped build the conviction.

This experience convinced me more than ever that survivors are not just victims who remember; they are witnesses who understand. The knowledge we carry is not just a narrative — maybe it’s a map, one that can guide the pursuit of justice, helping us understand how violence was structured, and pointing directly to those who are responsible. That’s why we cannot build real, honest, and effective justice cases in the future without placing survivor knowledge at the center — not on the sidelines.

Based on your experience, what are the ways that professionals can ensure they are championing victims' voices during every stage of the process?

In international justice systems, it is easy for a courtroom to focus entirely on strategy — on building a strong conviction — and maybe forget about the person at the center of it all: the victim. But my experience in the French trial was different. It reminded me that real justice does not begin when the verdict is spoken, but when someone truly listens.

I look back at what happened during the Paris trial. I only received confirmation that I would be part of the trial two, maybe three weeks before it began. That left me just a few days to prepare — two or three days at most. But from the very beginning, my lawyer and my legal team surrounded me with care and protection. I did not feel alone. There were several of them, which made everything smoother. They were not strangers to the Syrian context because they had worked on a similar case before. I did not need to explain everything from the beginning. They knew the landscape, they knew the pain — and most importantly, they treated me and my case as if it were their own, not as a task, but as a responsibility.

Even the judge, despite the pressure of handling such a highly sensitive case, was very flexible and deeply human. At the start of my testimony, he looked at me and said: “I know what you are about to share may take time. I know it is very painful. If you would like, we can divide your testimony across several days”. It was a small gesture, but it changed everything. It gave me space. It gave me time. It gave me the freedom to speak in my own way. He never interrupted me. He never rushed me. He simply listened to me.

The prosecutor also heard me. In his closing remarks, he quoted from my testimony — not just once, but several times. He did not just record my words; he brought them into the heart of the courtroom. And at the final moment of the trial, when the verdicts were being read, the judge added one sentence after each decision: “and for all the unnamed Syrian victims”.

Those words, small in appearance but huge in meaning, told me that I was not just a voice in the room. I was there on behalf of those who were never named — those who might never be found. In that moment, my testimony did not feel like a burden anymore. It felt like a presence. It felt like a purpose.

All of this taught me something I will never forget: lawyers and judges are not just there to win a case. They are there to make the victim feel seen, heard, and valued. A voice on its own is not enough. It needs someone to carry it, to protect it, to understand it, and to return it to where it belongs — at the center of justice.

Despite everything you have experienced, you still believe in the importance of truth. How do you continue to have this hope?

Yes, that is true. Justice often feels far away — sometimes slow, sometimes almost unreachable. Sometimes it feels like the world has forgotten those who died, those who disappeared, or those who broke silently under torture. But I still believe the truth is worth something — not because justice is near, but because I have lived through injustice so closely that I know exactly what it does to a person when the truth is stolen from them. Yes, trials may come late, and they may not bring full justice for everyone. But they protect the truth.

They allow us to say: this happened and that happened. They honor the dead, and they restore dignity to those whose voices were never heard in time. For many of us, the witnesses, time does not move in the same way anymore. We do not wait for justice on a calendar. We know that a crime without justice is a crime that never ends. That is why we stay, we testify, we speak.

We have seen war crimes from the Balkans brought to court decades after the war. We have seen Nazi criminals tried in Germany at the age of 80, 85, even 90 years old. It does not bring the dead back, for sure — but it says something very clear: no crime disappears, and no crime goes uncounted.

So yes, I still hold on to hope. Not because the world is fair, but because truth does not die. If someone chooses to carry it — even alone — truth does not need to win quickly. It only needs never to be forgotten.

What advice would you give to students interested in pursuing a career in international

justice?

To every student listening now who dreams of working in justice, maybe I have one simple but essential piece of advice: always search for answers. Do not be afraid of hard questions — the ones that disturb you, the questions that shake your certainty or challenge your education. Keep asking until you find the answers that satisfy your conscience — not just the textbook, not just the institution, and not just the authorities.

Also, it is very important to start close to home. Start with where you grew up. Start with the questions that live in your community, maybe with the people who speak your language. Try to understand the silence. Ask about justice in the streets, in homes, in classrooms, in refugee camps, in prisons, and in forgotten stories.

Always ask others about their experiences. Listen — listen carefully to the tiny details: the places, the sounds, the repeated words, the looks that never left them. All of that can someday build justice.

Always remember there is no such thing as small justice or big justice. Justice should not favor the rich over the poor, the known over the forgotten, the white over the black.

Justice is not about how the world sees it; it’s about who chooses to believe in it. If you feel discouraged — and you will — remember that there were times when Syrians were just millimeters away from losing all hope, so close to collapse. But we held on to one final thread — the thread that said: we are still here, and what happened to us still deserves to be told.

And keep asking. Sometimes answers take a long time. In my case, some questions took twelve years to be answered!