‘Step towards justice’: US indicts ex-military officials for Syria abuses
Al Jazeera
Syrian intelligence officers Jamil Hassan and Abdul Salam Mahmoud behind torture of detainees, including US citizens, prosecutors say.
Rights monitors in the United States have hailed the US Department of Justice’s indictment of two military officials accused of overseeing torture and abuse as part of the toppled regime of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The indictment, unsealed on Monday just a day after opposition groups entered Damascus and overthrew al-Assad, accuses former Syrian Air Force Intelligence officers Jamil Hassan, 72, and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, 65, of “cruel and inhuman treatment on detainees under their control, including US citizens” at the detention centre at the Mezzeh Military Airport in Damascus.
The notorious facility was one of many across Syria that rights groups say housed the victims of al-Assad’s crackdown on dissent amid the country’s 13-year civil war. It appears to be the first time the US has sought to hold individuals who took part in al-Assad’s sprawling military and intelligence apparatus accountable through the court system.
The indictment did not name the US citizens in question, but the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), a Washington, DC-based organisation that helped to collect witnesses’ testimony in the case, said 26-year-old aid worker Layla Shweikani was among Hassan and Mahmoud’s victims.
“Now it is our time to catch these criminals and bring them to the United States for trial,” the group said in a statement.
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