‘Step towards justice’: US indicts ex-military officials for Syria abuses 

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.

Shweikani died while in Syrian government custody in 2016, with the US confirming her death two years later. Still, advocates have long decried government inaction amid calls for justice.

SETF had provided witness testimony to prosecutors that Shweikani had been tortured while at the Mezzeh Military Airport before being transferred to the Sednaya military prison. Rights monitors say that is where she was executed following a reportedly seconds-long military trial.

Among the witnesses who testified to the US government was Dina Kash, the aunt SETF’s Executive Director Mouaz Moustafa.

Kash “played a pivotal role in getting these indictments to happen because she was tortured by the same criminals as [Layla] was,” the group said in a statement. “When we catch these criminals, Dina will be a powerful witness among other brave Syrians testifying in an American court about the killing of innocent civilians by the Assad regime thugs.”

The American Coalition for Syria also called the indictment a “landmark step towards accountability”.

The group said it “welcomes the arrest warrants and hopes this will be a step towards attaining justice for the Shweikani family and for all those who have been disappeared, tortured, and killed in the Assad regime’s notorious prison”.

Syrians and rights monitors have been seeking a fuller accounting of those missing and killed by al-Assad’s government in the days since opposition groups, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), took control of Damascus on Sunday following a lightning offensive across the country.

The events have cast the future of Syria into uncertainty, raising questions about whether the takeover will transform into inclusive and peaceful civilian rule, or whether more violence will arise between the disparate groups that make up the opposition.

Other actors in the country, including ISIL (ISIS), also threaten to destabilise any fledgling transition efforts. A new government began to take shape on Tuesday, with the appointment of a transitional prime minister.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meanwhile, said Washington will support any transition process that respects minority rights, prevents the spread of “terrorism” and assures any chemical weapons stockpiles kept by al-Assad are secured and destroyed.

White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday that the administration of US President Joe Biden was able to communicate with opposition groups and would continue to do so.

He added that the US was continuing to push for information on Austin Tice, a US journalist detained in Syria in 2012. Tice is among the more than 135,000 people detained or disappeared by the al-Assad government since 2011, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

Opposition forces have already freed thousands of prisoners in their offensive, with families continuing to search facilities for any evidence of loved ones.

The US indictment unsealed on Tuesday offered yet another window into the abuses they may have faced. It accused Syrian intelligence officers Hassan and Mahmoud of beating detainees with cables, hoses and pipes, breaking detainee’s teeth, stripping prisoners naked, electrocuting them, hanging them by their wrists and feet, and removing their toenails, among other abuses.

The indictment further accused the pair of psychological torture as part of their “atmosphere of terror”. That included showing detainees blood on the walls and dead bodies in cells, and falsely claiming their families had been killed or detained.

The whereabouts of the two men remained unknown, according to the US Department of Justice.