A federal grand jury in Chicago charged two high-ranking Syrian intelligence officials close to the country’s ousted president with war crimes against prisoners at an airport near the capital city of Damascus, according to an indictment unsealed Monday.
The indictment, filed last month after the grand jury made its decision in November 2023, charges Abdul Salam Mahmoud and Jamil Hassan with “cruel and inhuman treatment” and creating an “atmosphere of terror” for people being held at the Mezzeh Military Airport prison in Syria. The country’s president, Bashar Assad, has fled to Russia after insurgent forces took over Damascus following nearly 14 years of civil war. Assad’s flight marks the end of almost 50 years of his family’s rule.
Hassan, 72, was director of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence who oversaw detention facilities and prisons, and Mahmoud, 65, supervised operations at the airbase and prison, according to the indictment. The two officials and others supporting Al-Assad’s government arrested people “who the Syrian regime viewed as opponents” and allegedly subjected them to a litany of abuses while they were held at the Mezzeh prison.
The indictment alleges that between 2012 and 2019, the two officials were involved with “forcibly removing (detainees’) toenails,” burning them with cigarettes, hot liquids and acid and hanging them by their wrists. Detainees were predominantly Syrian but also included American citizens, people with dual citizenship and foreign nationals, according to the indictment.
Prisoners were held in overcrowded, dirty cells without access to food and water or medical treatments, sometimes alongside corpses, and were routinely exposed to the injuries and screams of other victims being abused, interrogated or threatened, the indictment alleges.
Hassan, Mahmoud and others are also accused of threatening detainees’ families with imprisonment, sexual assault and death to coerce false confessions from prisoners, and lying to them about their family members being killed or arrested.
Arrest warrants have been issued for both men, a news release said. The maximum sentence for a war crime conviction is life in prison.
