CNN
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A former Syrian military official who oversaw a prison where alleged human rights abuses took place has been indicted on several counts of torture after being arrested on visa fraud charges in July, authorities announced Thursday.
Samir Usman al-Sheikh, who oversaw Syria’s notorious Adra prison from 2005 to 2008 under recently ousted President Bashar al-Assad, is facing federal charges on several counts of torture and conspiracy to torture. Indicted by a grand jury.
“This is a huge step toward justice,” said Muaz Mustafa, executive director of the U.S.-based Syria Emergency Task Force. “The trial of Samir Usman al-Sheikh will reiterate that the United States will not allow war criminals to come and reside in the United States with impunity, even if the victim was not a U.S. citizen. .”
Federal authorities detained a 72-year-old man at Los Angeles International Airport in July on suspicion of immigration fraud, but specifically for persecuting someone in Syria on a U.S. visa and citizenship application, according to a criminal complaint. It was denied. He had purchased a one-way ticket to depart from LAX on July 10 and fly to Beirut, Lebanon.
Human rights groups and United Nations officials have accused the Syrian government of perpetrating widespread abuses, including torture and arbitrary detention of thousands of people in detention centers, often without informing families. .
The government fell to a sudden rebel offensive last Sunday, ending the 50-year rule of the Assad family and forcing the former president to flee to Russia. Since then, rebels have released tens of thousands of prisoners from facilities in multiple cities.
In his role as warden of Adra Prison, al-Sheikh allegedly ordered his subordinates to inflict severe physical and psychological suffering on prisoners, and was directly involved in it.
According to federal officials, he ordered the prisoners into a “punishment wing,” where they were suspended from the ceiling with their arms outstretched and beaten, with their bodies cut in half at the waist. The patient was fitted with a folding device, which in some cases caused fractures to the vertebrae.
“Our client vehemently denies these politically motivated and false accusations,” his attorney Nina Marino said in an emailed statement.
Marino called the case a “misuse” of government resources by the U.S. Department of Justice “to prosecute foreign nationals for crimes committed against non-U.S. nationals in foreign countries.”
In an indictment released Monday, U.S. authorities accused two Syrian officials of running a prison and torture center at Mezzeh Air Base in the capital Damascus. The victims included Syrians, Americans and dual nationals, including 26-year-old American aid worker Leila Shweikani, according to prosecutors and the Syrian Emergency Task Force.
Federal prosecutors issued arrest warrants for the two officials, but said they remain at large.
In May, a French court sentenced three senior Syrian officials in absentia to life in prison for complicity in war crimes, in a largely symbolic but landmark case against the Assad regime and the first of its kind in Europe. Ta.
Al-Sheikh began his career in a police command position, officials said, before moving to Syria’s national security services, which focused on countering political opposition. He then became the warden of Adra Prison and Brigadier General in 2005. In 2011, he was appointed governor of Deir Ezzor, a region northeast of the Syrian capital Damascus, where there had been a violent crackdown on demonstrators.
According to the indictment, Alsheikh immigrated to the United States in 2020 and applied for citizenship in 2023.
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit torture and three counts of torture, and a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for each of two counts of immigration fraud.
