The United States has indicted a former high-ranking Syrian official who tortured dissidents under the Syrian dictatorship.
According to the American daily The New York Times (NYT) on the 12th (local time), a federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Syrian national Samir Othman Alshaikh on that day.
According to federal prosecutors, Alshaikh, who was the warden of the Wudra prison, is accused of directly participating in the torture of prisoners who were jailed for opposing the Bashar al-Assad regime, which was recently ousted by rebel offensives.
He was investigated for ordering guards to take prisoners to a prison area called the "punishment wing," hang them from the ceiling, and beat them. The guards forcibly bent the prisoners' bodies in half, causing excruciating pain, and some suffered spinal fractures in the process.
Alshaikh was appointed governor of Deir al-Zour province in 2011 by Bashar al-Assad, who ruled Syria for 24 years before being attacked by rebels and recently fleeing to Russia.
Alshaikh, who has now been indicted on three counts of torture and one count of conspiracy to commit torture, was already charged in July with fraud aimed at obtaining U.S. citizenship. He immigrated to the United States in 2020 and, when applying for citizenship last year, provided false information on immigration documents regarding his history of torture and abuse.
On the 9th, U.S. federal prosecutors also indicted two senior Syrian military officials for war crimes committed against Americans and Syrians during the Syrian civil war. This is the first case in which the United States has prosecuted high-ranking Syrian officials for crimes against humanity.
Jamil Hassan, former head of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Directorate, and Abul Salam Mahmoud, a brigadier general in the Air Force Intelligence Unit, are accused of managing prisons in Damascus from 2012 to 2019 and torturing prisoners. Their whereabouts are unknown, but under the indictment, U.S. judicial authorities can detain them immediately upon discovery.
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