(Zaman Al Wasl)- Eighth years ago on October 7, the prominent dissident and Kurdish leader Mashaal Tammo was assassinated by pro-Bashar al-Assad’s militants in northeastern Qamishli city.
Tammo was born in Derbasiyah, Hasakah in 1957. He received a degree in Agricultural Engineering, but his interest in politics since the mid-seventies has led him to become a member of the Political Committee in the People’s Union party until 1999, when he resigned to work in civil society committees.
He founded the Jaladat Badrakhan forum in Qamishli, and in 2005, he founded the Kurdish Future Movement in Syria.
His son, Marcel Tammo, says that his father was arrested because of his political activity in 2008 by an Air Force Intelligence patrol and sentenced to three and a half years in prison on charges of "undermining the prestige of the state" and "weakening national sentiment." He was then handed over to the Political Security Directorate in Damascus, which in turn referred him to the examining magistrate in Damascus.
Tammo said that his father was mistreated and was possibly subjected to severe torture since his abduction in Aleppo. He revealed that his father had suffered great psychological pressure in prison, and the jailers were constantly creating problems for him.
The son of the martyr leader, who is an official of external relations in the Kurdish Future Movement, said that his father communicated with him by phone from inside the prison, insisting on the urgency of demonstrations in Qamishli and Kurdish areas. Meanwhile inside the prison, most of the opposition announced a hunger strike right until a demonstration broke in front of the Justice Palace and 7 people were arrested in Damascus. He added that his father was transferred to solitary days before his release. At the time, Ali Mamlouk has offered the Kurdish areas to be under the management of the Future Movement on condition that the demonstrations end, but he rejected the offer.
In June 2011, Tammo was released, immediately joining the Syrian revolution and rejecting any dialogue with the regime. Marcel Tammo also revealed that before his arrest, his father was subjected to an assassination attempt by the regime's militias.
He went on to talk about the details of his father's assassination on October 7, 2011, as he was in a meeting with the activist Zahida and another leader, four people stormed the house and started shooting. His father was shot 18 times, which killed him immediately, and was buried in his home town in Darbasiyah countryside.
Confidential documents circulated by the media a few years ago unveiled the regime's orders regarding his assassination in Syria to lay the blame on Turkey.
These documents revealed that the order came directly from Bashar al-Assad, identifying Tammo by name to be assassinated and clearly assigning the Air Force Intelligence to carry out the operation.
Zaman Al Wasl
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