Germans 'working in specialist torture squad for Islamic State'

German jihadists are reportedly working in a special unit of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) that specialises in torture.

Members of the unit, which is responsible for the arrest and interrogation of deserters and dissidents, refer to it as a “storm troop”, according to a joint report by Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and NDR and WDR television.

The report is based on transcripts of police interrogations of a former jihadist named only as Nils D under German privacy laws.

Nils D travelled to Syria as a volunteer in 2013 and was arrested after his return to Germany the following year.

During his time in Syria he witnessed several torture sessions and executions, including the crucifixion of a former Isil commander, he told interrogators.

For eight of the 13 months he spent in Syria he worked in a unit which the German attorney-general has described as Isil’s “Department of Internal Security”.

Nils D denied he had personally taken part in torture or executions. He claimed he took part in 15 to 20 arrests during which he watched over informers.

But a photo was found on his cellphone of him holding a gun to the back of a prisoner’s head, according to Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Another German is still active in the unit, he told interrogators. The second German was not named in the report.

Over the course of 20 interrogation sessions, Nils D described witnessing routine torture sessions at the prison in the town of Manbij where the unit is based.

There was an “execution square” in the town where shootings and beheadings took place, and on one occasion he saw a former Isil commander crucified there as an “example” to others.

The “storm troop” always wore masks, and received better pay than other Isil jihadists. After the capture of Mosul in 2014, they received a share of booty from the city.

The German word Nils D used to refer to the unit, Sturmtrupp, does not have the same Nazi connotations as the Sturmbann of the SS.

Nils D returned to Germany in 2014. He was arrested in his native town of Dinslaken in North Rhine-Westphalia after a police wiretap overheard him boasting to an acquaintance about his time in Isil.

He is due to stand trial on charges of membership of a foreign terrorist organisation in Düsseldorf in January.