According to the documents, 72-year-old Samir Ousman al-Sheikh was arrested at the international airport in the United States, accused of violating the immigration law. The accusation is that when he applied for a visa and citizenship, he denied having persecuted anyone in Syria. The court documents state that the charges once morest him may be extended.
– This is very big
Al-Sheikh ran the notorious Adra prison in Syria from 2005 to 2008, under the rule of President Bashar al-Assad. UN officials and human rights groups have accused the Syrian government of widespread abuses in prisons, including torture and arbitrary detention of thousands of people. In many cases, the family has also not been told anything regarding the fate of those arrested. Many are still missing and are believed to have died or been executed.
– This is the most high-ranking official from the Assad regime who has been arrested anywhere in the world. This is very big, says Mouaz Moustafa. He heads the organization Syrian Emergency Task Force, which supports the opposition in Syria.
Got tips in 2022
Moustafa says that an employee of the organization, who has himself been imprisoned in Syria, received a tip from a refugee in 2022 that “a possible war criminal” was in the United States. They alerted federal authorities and began working with them to build a case once morest al-Sheikh.
Along the way, they interviewed five former prisoners, who said that they were hung by the arms and whipped and beaten with electric cables. They saw other prisoners being branded with red-hot metal rods. One of them said that the guards broke his back.
When al-Sheikh was stopped at the LA airport, he had a one-way ticket to Beirut, one of Syria’s neighboring countries, according to court papers.
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2024-07-19 02:03:35
