Former Syrian military official who oversaw notorious prison indicted in California on federal torture charges
A former Syrian army officer arrested for overseeing a prison suspected of human rights abuses charged Authorities said Thursday he was guilty of multiple torture counts after his arrest in July on visa fraud charges.
Samir Ousman al-Sheikh oversaw Syria’s notorious Adela prison from 2005 to 2008. recently evicted A federal grand jury in California has indicted President Bashar al-Assad on multiple counts of torture and conspiracy to torture.
“This is a huge step toward justice,” said Muaz Mustafa, executive director of the U.S.-based Syria Emergency Task Force. “Samir Osman Sheikh’s trial will reaffirm that the United States will not allow war criminals to come to live in the United States without accountability, even if their victims are not U.S. citizens.”
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Federal officials detained the 72-year-old at Los Angeles International Airport in July on immigration fraud charges, specifically after he denied persecuting anyone in his U.S. visa and citizenship applications. in syriaaccording to the criminal complaint. He purchased a one-way ticket and will depart from Los Angeles International Airport on July 10 to Beirut, Lebanon.
Human rights groups and U.N. officials have accused the Syrian government of widespread abuses in its detention facilities, including torture and arbitrary detention of thousands of people, in many cases without notifying their families.
Last Sunday, government forces were suddenly attacked by rebels, ending the Assad family’s 50-year rule and forcing the former president to flee to Russia. Since then, the rebels have released tens of thousands of prisoners from facilities in several cities.
While serving as the warden of Adela Prison, Sheikh allegedly ordered his subordinates to inflict pain and was directly involved in inflicting severe physical and mental suffering on prisoners.
According to federal officials, he ordered prisoners to the “punishment wing” where they were suspended from the ceiling, beaten with their arms outstretched, and subjected to a device that folded their bodies in half at the waist, sometimes Causes spinal fractures.
“Our client vehemently denies these politically motivated and false accusations,” his attorney, Nina Marino, said in an emailed statement.
Marino called the case a “misleading use” of government resources by the Justice Department “to prosecute an alien for crimes committed in a foreign country against non-U.S. citizens.”
U.S. authorities accused two Syrian officials of running a prison and torture center at Mezeh air base in the capital, Damascus, in an indictment unsealed on Monday. The victims include Syrians, Americans and dual citizens, including 26-year-old American aid worker Layla Shweikani, according to prosecutors and the Syria Emergency Task Force.
Federal prosecutors said they have issued arrest warrants for the two officers, who remain at large.
In May, a French court sentenced three senior Syrian officials to life imprisonment in absentia for complicity in war crimes, a symbolic but landmark case against the Assad regime and the first of its kind in Europe.
Officials said Sheikh began his career in a police command post and later moved to Syria’s national security agency, which focuses on combating political dissent. In 2005, he became Adela Warden and Brigadier General. In 2011, he was appointed governor of Deir ez-Zor province, an area northeast of the Syrian capital Damascus that has seen a violent crackdown on protesters.
Sheikh immigrated to the United States in 2020 and applied for citizenship in 2023, according to the indictment.
If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison on the conspiracy to commit torture charge and three torture charges, and two immigration fraud charges, which carry a maximum sentence of 10 years each.
