A former regime official has been sentenced to life in prison by a US court in Los Angeles, and a federal jury has indicted Samir Othman al-Sheikh, who oversaw Syria's notorious Adra prison.
According to court records, the 72-year-old al-Sheikh was the head of the central prison in Damascus from 2005 to 2008. In that position, he allegedly ordered his subordinates to inflict pain and suffering on political prisoners and others.
"This is a huge step toward justice," Moaz Mustafa, executive director of the US-based Syrian Emergency Group, told CNN.
“The trial of Samir Othman al-Sheikh will demonstrate that the United States will not allow war criminals to come and live in the United States without accountability, even if their victims are not American citizens,” he added.
According to CNN, “Federal officials detained the 72-year-old in July at Los Angeles International Airport on immigration fraud charges, specifically that he denied in his visa and U.S. citizenship applications that he had persecuted anyone in Syria,” according to a criminal complaint. He had purchased a one-way plane ticket to leave Los Angeles on July 10, en route to Beirut, Lebanon.
In 2011, al-Sheikh was governor of Deir ez-Zor and arrived in the United States in 2020, applying for citizenship in 2023, according to the report. Law enforcement officials believe the defendant lied about his crimes in order to obtain U.S. residency, and he now faces more than 100 years in prison: 20 for the conspiracy charge, 20 for each of the three torture charges, and 10 for each of the two alleged immigration fraud rings.
Human rights groups and United Nations officials have accused the fallen Assad regime of widespread abuses at its detention facilities, including the torture and arbitrary detention of thousands of people, in many cases without informing their families.
As the head of Adra Prison, Sheikh is accused of ordering his subordinates to inflict severe physical and psychological pain on prisoners, and of being directly involved in it.
He ordered prisoners to be transferred to the “punishment wing,” where they were beaten while suspended from the ceiling with their arms outstretched, and subjected to a device that folded their bodies in half at the waist, sometimes resulting in spinal fractures, according to federal officials.
U.S. authorities have charged two Syrian officials with running a prison and torture center at the Mezzeh air base in the capital, Damascus, in an indictment unsealed Monday.
The victims included Syrians, Americans and dual nationals, including 26-year-old American aid worker Laila Shweikani, according to prosecutors and the Syrian Emergency Task Force. Federal prosecutors said they had issued arrest warrants for the two officials, who remain at large.
In May, a French court sentenced three high-ranking Syrian officials in absentia to life in prison for complicity in war crimes in a largely symbolic but historic case against the Assad regime, the first of its kind in Europe.
Sheikh began his career in police command positions before moving to Syria’s state security apparatus, which focused on countering political dissent. He later became the head of Adra Prison and a brigadier general in 2005.
In 2011, he was appointed governor of Deir ez-Zor, northeast of the Syrian capital, Damascus, where there has been a violent crackdown on protesters. According to the indictment, "Sheikh" immigrated to the United States in 2020 and applied for citizenship in 2023.
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