A Vienna court convicted two former Syrian security officials under Bashar al-Assad’s former regime for crimes including torture and sexual assault committed against opponents.

The primary defendant, Khaled al-Halabi, had headed the General Intelligence Directorate in Raqqa from 2011 to 2013. The court found him guilty of torture and other offenses, including aggravated bodily harm and sexual assault, based on testimony from more than a dozen victims describing abuse carried out between 2011 and 2013.

A second defendant, Musab Abu Rukbah, was the former police chief in Raqqa. He was convicted of similar abuse charges, including sexual coercion and aggravated coercion, though not for torture. Prosecutors said both men sometimes ordered the crimes, sometimes failed to prevent them, and in some cases carried them out themselves.

The court said the offenses were carried out to suppress the anti-regime protest movement and intimidate the population. Victims testified that they were stripped and beaten and described forms of abuse including electric shocks and water-based torture, with many reporting lasting physical and psychological harm.

Both men pleaded not guilty. The verdicts can be appealed.