Former prison head charged with torture in US

A former Syrian government official has been charged with torture in the United States, authorities said on Thursday.

Samir Ousman Alsheikh, who oversaw the Damascus Central Prison from 2005 and 2008, was charged by a federal grand jury with several counts of torture and conspiracy to commit torture.

US authorities said the allegations against Alsheikh were “chilling”.

He was arrested earlier this year at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on two immigration fraud charges, and had purchased a one-way ticket from LAX to Beirut, Lebanon.

According to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office, Central District of California, Alsheikh concealed his employment at the prison and denied persecuting anyone in his US visa and citizenship applications.

US officials say Alsheikh personally inflicted “severe physical and mental pain and suffering on political and other prisoners” in his role under ousted President Bashar al-Assad.

He allegedly ordered detainees to the “Punishment Wing” in the prison, where they would be beaten while suspended from the ceiling and subject to a device which would cause “excruciating pain”, sometimes resulting in fractured spines.

“Almost 20 years ago, the defendant was accused of torturing prisoners in Syria and, today, we are one step closer to holding him accountable for those heinous crimes”, the Special Agent in Charge of the HSI Los Angeles Field office, Eddy Wang, said in a statement.

If convicted, Alsheikh faces up to 20 years in prison for the conspiracy to commit torture charge; up to 20 years for each of the three torture charges; and up to 10 years for each of the two immigration fraud charges.

In a statement to the Associated Press, Alsheikh’s lawyer says he “vehemently denies these politically motivated and false accusations”.

The 72-year-old moved to the US in 2020 and had been living in Lexington, South Carolina, court documents showed.

This comes after thousands of prisoners were liberated by rebel forces across Syria after the fall of the Assad regime.

Videos showed dozens of detainees being freed, while other footage also showed people running towards the prisons in hopes of finding their missing loved ones.

Human rights groups and United Nations officials have previously accused the former Syrian government of widespread abuse in prisons.

The UK-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said almost 60,000 people were tortured and killed in the prisons run by Assad.

On Thursday, Syrian rebel forces said they plan to close the notoriously harsh prisons and hunt those involved in the killing or torture of detainees.