A federal grand jury in Los Angeles charged a former Syrian authorities official on Thursday with torturing political dissidents at a infamous jail in Damascus.
The previous official, Samir Ousman al-Sheikh, 72, ran Adra jail, in response to federal prosecutors, the place he was personally concerned in torturing inmates in a bid to stifle opposition to its lately deposed authoritarian president, Bashar al-Assad.
Prosecutors mentioned Mr. al-Sheikh ordered prisoners to be taken to part of the jail referred to as the “punishment wing,” the place they had been overwhelmed whereas hanging from the ceiling. Guards would forcibly fold our bodies in half, leading to horrible ache and fractured spines.
The indictment was the second time in per week that the Justice Division introduced that it had charged prime Syrian officers with human rights abuses. The strikes underscore its efforts to carry to account the highest reaches of the federal government for a brutal system of detention and torture that flourished below Mr. al-Assad.
The costs towards Mr. al-Sheikh on Thursday add to earlier charges in July that accused him of tried naturalization fraud in his effort to hunt U.S. citizenship, in response to a legal criticism. He was arrested trying to fly to Beirut.
The U.S. lawyer for the Central District of California, Martin Estrada, forged the brand new charges towards Mr. al-Sheikh in a grim gentle. “The allegations in this superseding indictment of grave human rights abuses are chilling,” he mentioned.
Mr. al-Sheikh was charged with three counts of torture and one depend of conspiracy to commit torture.
Mr. al-Sheikh immigrated to the USA in 2020 and utilized for U.S. citizenship in 2023, mendacity on federal varieties in regards to the abuses, the authorities have mentioned.
Prosecutors mentioned he was appointed governor of the province of Deir al Zour by Mr. al-Assad in 2011. Mr. al-Assad’s authoritarian authorities crumbled over the weekend after rebels routed his forces and took management of swaths of the nation.
On Monday, federal prosecutors unsealed charges towards two top-ranking Syrian intelligence officers, accusing them of conflict crimes. The pair, Jamil Hassan and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, oversaw a jail in Damascus throughout the Syrian civil conflict, prosecutors mentioned.
That indictment signaled the primary time the USA had criminally charged prime Syrian officers with human rights abuses used to silence dissent and unfold worry via the nation.
Mr. Hassan was the pinnacle of the Air Power Intelligence Directorate, and Mr. Mahmoud served as a brigadier basic within the Air Power’s intelligence unit. Their location is unknown.
