Rights displays in the US have hailed the US Division of Justice’s indictment of two army officers accused of overseeing torture and abuse as a part of the toppled regime of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The indictment, unsealed on Monday only a day after opposition teams entered Damascus and overthrew al-Assad, accuses former Syrian Air Drive Intelligence officers Jamil Hassan, 72, and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, 65, of “merciless and inhuman therapy on detainees below their management, together with US residents” on the detention centre on the Mezzeh Navy Airport in Damascus.
The infamous facility was one of many throughout Syria that rights teams say housed the victims of al-Assad’s crackdown on dissent amid the nation’s 13-year civil battle. It seems to be the primary time the US has sought to carry people who took half in al-Assad’s sprawling army and intelligence equipment accountable via the courtroom system.
The indictment didn’t title the US residents in query, however the Syrian Emergency Job Drive (SETF), a Washington, DC-based organisation that helped to gather witnesses’ testimony within the case, mentioned 26-year-old support employee Layla Shweikani was amongst Hassan and Mahmoud’s victims.
“Now it’s our time to catch these criminals and produce them to the US for trial,” the group mentioned in an announcement.
As we await the liberation of Saydnaya Jail, I am considering of these for whom right now comes too late.
These whose names we do not know and people whose names we do, like 26 yr previous Syrian-American support employee Layla Shweikani who was executed after a minutes-long trial in 2016. pic.twitter.com/8ClSQooL5h
— Mai El-Sadany (@maitelsadany) December 8, 2024
Shweikani died whereas in Syrian authorities custody in 2016, with the US confirming her demise two years later. Nonetheless, advocates have lengthy decried authorities inaction amid requires justice.
SETF had supplied witness testimony to prosecutors that Shweikani had been tortured whereas on the Mezzeh Navy Airport earlier than being transferred to the Sednaya army jail. Rights displays say that’s the place she was executed following a reportedly seconds-long army trial.
Among the many witnesses who testified to the US authorities was Dina Kash, the aunt SETF’s Government Director Mouaz Moustafa.
Kash “performed a pivotal function in getting these indictments to occur as a result of she was tortured by the identical criminals as [Layla] was,” the group mentioned in an announcement. “After we catch these criminals, Dina can be a robust witness amongst different courageous Syrians testifying in an American courtroom in regards to the killing of harmless civilians by the Assad regime thugs.”
The American Coalition for Syria additionally referred to as the indictment a “landmark step in direction of accountability”.
The group mentioned it “welcomes the arrest warrants and hopes this can be a step in direction of attaining justice for the Shweikani household and for all those that have been disappeared, tortured, and killed within the Assad regime’s infamous jail”.
One other window into abuses
Syrians and rights displays have been looking for a fuller accounting of these lacking and killed by al-Assad’s authorities within the days since opposition teams, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), took control of Damascus on Sunday following a lightning offensive throughout the nation.
The occasions have solid the way forward for Syria into uncertainty, elevating questions on whether or not the takeover will remodel into inclusive and peaceable civilian rule, or whether or not extra violence will come up between the disparate teams that make up the opposition.
Different actors within the nation, together with ISIL (ISIS), additionally threaten to destabilise any fledgling transition efforts. A brand new authorities started to take shape on Tuesday, with the appointment of a transitional prime minister.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in the meantime, mentioned Washington will help any transition course of that respects minority rights, prevents the unfold of “terrorism” and assures any chemical weapons stockpiles stored by al-Assad are secured and destroyed.
White Home spokesperson John Kirby mentioned on Tuesday that the administration of US President Joe Biden was in a position to talk with opposition teams and would proceed to take action.
He added that the US was persevering with to push for info on Austin Tice, a US journalist detained in Syria in 2012. Tice is among the many greater than 135,000 individuals detained or disappeared by the al-Assad authorities since 2011, in keeping with the Syrian Community for Human Rights.
Opposition forces have already freed hundreds of prisoners of their offensive, with households persevering with to look amenities for any proof of family members.
The US indictment unsealed on Tuesday supplied yet one more window into the abuses they could have confronted. It accused Syrian intelligence officers Hassan and Mahmoud of beating detainees with cables, hoses and pipes, breaking detainee’s enamel, stripping prisoners bare, electrocuting them, hanging them by their wrists and toes, and eradicating their toenails, amongst different abuses.
The indictment additional accused the pair of psychological torture as a part of their “ambiance of terror”. That included displaying detainees blood on the partitions and lifeless our bodies in cells, and falsely claiming their households had been killed or detained.
The whereabouts of the 2 males remained unknown, in keeping with the US Division of Justice.
