SYRIA NEWS | ZAMAN ALWSL https://en.zamanalwsl.net// Syria leading news site delivering fast, in-depth coverage of the events shaping the war-torn country. https://www.zamanalwsl.net/ https://en.zamanalwsl.net Founded in Homs, 2005 Sat, 18 Apr 2026 14:32:53 +0300 ar-sy hourly 1 https://en.zamanalwsl.net// <![CDATA[War criminals: Bisher Yaziji, nasty militia commander turns Canadian resident]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/71071 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/71071 Mon, 23 Mar 2026 10:39:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/71071
Recent investigative reports have revealed that Bisher al-Yaziji, the former commander of the "National Defense Forces - Lions of the Valley" militia (Wadi al-Nasara), is residing in Quebec, Canada, years after leading bloody military and security operations in the western Homs countryside.

The Black File: Violations by the "Lions of the Valley"

Testimonies and collected documents indicate al-Yaziji's involvement, a native of the village of Marmarita, in a series of crimes classified as war crimes and crimes against humanity, most notably:

- The "Green Hotel" Massacre (2014): Al-Yaziji is the prime suspect in the disappearance of more than 120 civilians (including women and children) who vanished without a trace after being detained in the hotel near the Monastery of St. George, in coordination with intelligence agencies.

- The Siege and Bombardment of Krak des Chevaliers: He led systematic military operations against the neighborhoods of Krak des Chevaliers and used places of worship in the valley area as launching pads for artillery shells.

- Kidnapping and Assassination: He managed a network of "Shabiha" (pro-regime militia) who carried out kidnappings for ransom and targeted civilians in neighboring villages with sniper fire.

The Journey of Disguise: From Military Uniform to Quebec

With the fall of Assad, Yazigi fled through Lebanon and then Dubai, eventually reaching Canada. Recent photos circulating online show Yazigi in front of the historic Fairmont Le Château Frontenac hotel in Canada, attempting to integrate with a new identity or altered appearance, believing that geographical distance would grant him immunity from prosecution.

Legal Note: Canadian law, specifically the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act (CAHW Act), stipulates that authorities are obligated to prosecute those involved in international violations, especially if it is proven that misleading information was provided during immigration or asylum applications.

A Call for Human Rights and Legal Action

Based on the above, activists and victims (foremost among them the author of this report) urgently appeal to:

- The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP): to open an immediate investigation into Yazigi's record and compare his current photographs with his military archive.

- Human rights organizations: to activate the principle of "universal jurisdiction" to ensure he does not escape punishment.

- Witnesses and victims: to unite and provide firsthand accounts before the Canadian judiciary to strengthen the case for criminal prosecution.

Khaled Al-Hosni 
]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/71071 0 <![CDATA[Directors of Saydnaya Military Prison from establishment until 2024]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/71018 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/71018 Sun, 08 Mar 2026 10:59:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/71018
Saydnaya Military Prison is one of the most controversial and secretive sites in Syria, with its directors' names linked to pivotal moments in the country's modern history, particularly during the infamous "uprisings" and the period following 2011. This article traces the historical record of the officers who commanded the prison from its opening in 1987 until late 2024.

The Founding Era and the Pre-Revolution Period

The prison's history began with Brigadier General Barakat al-Ash (from Damsarkho, Latakia), who directed it from its opening in 1987 until the end of 1991. He was succeeded by Colonel Muhyiddin Muhammad (from Darminah, Jableh), who remained in his position for over a decade (1991–2003), a period marked by relative stability in the prison's military structure before the major transformations.

The mid-2000s witnessed escalating tensions within the prison, with Colonel Louay Youssef Youssef assuming command (2004-2006). He was succeeded by Colonel Ali Khair Bek (from Qardaha), whose tenure saw the infamous "Second Uprising" in July 2008, an event that fundamentally altered the security apparatus's approach to dealing with detainees.

Following these events, Brigadier General Talaat Mahfouz (from Al-Breikhia, Tartous) took over the administration from 2008 until his death in May 2013. This period coincided with the outbreak of the Syrian revolution and the prison's transformation into a major detention center for protesters and activists.

Rapid Changes (2013-2024)

Following Mahfouz's death, several officers successively managed the prison for short periods:

- Colonel Ibrahim Suleiman Hassan (from Fajlit, Tartous) for no more than six months in 2013.

- Colonel Adib Ismander (from Qala'i, Jableh) for a short period in early 2014.

- Colonel Mahmoud Ma'touq (from Fideo, Latakia) who remained in his position until his death in January 2018.

- Colonel Wassim Suleiman Hassan, nicknamed "The Butcher of Saydnaya," who managed the prison from 2018 until March 2020.

- Colonel Osama al-Ali (from Safita, Tartous) who assumed command from March 2020 until the end of 2024.
]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/71018 0 <![CDATA[Witnesses identify Colonel Louay Sulaytin of Military Intelligence on Zaman al-Wasl's list]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/70206 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/70206 Thu, 28 Aug 2025 01:41:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/70206
Testimonies from Hama residents revealed that Colonel Louay Deeb Salloum Sulaytin, an officer in the former regime, left behind a record laden with violations and crimes against civilians during the years of the revolution.

According to the sources, Sleitin used the Workers' Union building in the city center as a security headquarters, transforming it into a detention and sniper center for four years. His violations spanned the period from 2013 to 2018. During this period, residents of the Bab Qibli neighborhood alone were subjected to a campaign of arrests that included more than 233 young men, while at least 45 people from the same neighborhood were killed. His operations also extended to the neighborhoods of South al-Sakana, al-Wadi, and al-Andalus, in addition to the areas surrounding the headquarters.

Testimonies confirmed that Sulaytin supervised daily sniper operations from the rooftop of the building and participated, along with his aides—including Assistant Ahmed Abdel, Assistant Ghani, and Mahmoud Maala—in widespread violations, including murder under torture, extortion, and the imposition of taxes on the city's merchants.

Sulaytin's name appeared on a list of "Military Security" officers published by Zaman al-Wasl. He is affiliated with Branch 235 (Palestine Branch). After its publication, three people contacted the newspaper, confirming that they were direct victims of his violations. Among them were Mahmoud Shibli and Ali Ziad. They emphasized that he had committed war crimes against them and their families.

According to witnesses, reading his name on the list prompted them to officially report him and hand over photos they had documented over the past years.
]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/70206 0 <![CDATA[Public Security arrests former commander of Taftanaz Military Airport]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/69616 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/69616 Thu, 08 May 2025 03:13:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/69616
The Syrian General Security announced the arrest of Tariq Habib Asmandar, the former deputy commander of the Taftanaz military airbase, on charges of committing "brutal massacres" in the town of Taftanaz in the southern Idlib countryside and surrounding villages during the war.

According to preliminary information, Asmandar, who served as deputy commander of the airbase during the regime's control of the area, was accused of directly overseeing bombing operations and field executions targeting civilians between 2012 and 2016, resulting in hundreds of casualties.

The airbase, the largest helicopter airbase in the city, rained down heavy fire and vacuum bombs on neighboring villages, as well as towns in Idlib, Hama, and Aleppo provinces.

This airbase and the 63rd Brigade committed serious crimes against civilians in rebellious cities and villages by targeting them with rockets, aerial bombardment, and barrel bombs. Detachments from this brigade were deployed to all of Syria's military airbases.

*Escaped from Taftanaz Airport

In this context, Colonel Imad al-Din al-Saeed revealed that the arrested brigadier general not only committed crimes against the people of Taftanaz, but also committed crimes across all of Syria, as he was in charge of the 63rd Helicopter Brigade. The brigade consists of three squadrons: Squadron 253, a mixed squadron of Mi-17 and Mi-8 helicopters; Squadron 255, which includes Mi-8 helicopters; and Squadron 257, which includes Mi-8 helicopters.

Al-Asaad recounted that Brigadier General Asmandar fled Taftanaz Airport in a helicopter, along with eight helicopters, after the rebels took control of the airport on January 11.

With him was the criminal Brigadier General Faeq Mayassa, and they left the criminals, who were not from their sect, to face death at Taftanaz Airport under the pretext that they were going to Hama Airport to retrieve weapons and ammunition.

As a result, Asmandar and Mayassa were imprisoned by the deposed Assad regime before being released.

*Death Crows

Brigadier General Asmander's name was mentioned in a special report published by Zaman al-Wasl on May 30, 2017, under the title "Death Crows," as part of a list of helicopter pilots from the 63rd Brigade's Taftanaz and Hama airports who participated in airstrikes on civilian areas.

After the criminal Assad army failed to enter the town of Taftanaz several times, Asmander took revenge on the town's residents, killing and burning more than 100 people in the space of an hour and arresting dozens more. He was also directly responsible for the Taftanaz massacre that occurred on April 3, 2012.

According to documented activist Tamer Turkmani, the Assad regime used warplanes, artillery, and missiles. His forces also stormed the town, burning and looting homes and shops, causing massive destruction. As a result of this massacre, 65 civilians were killed and more than 25 young men were arrested.

Fares al-Rifai - Zaman al-Wasl
]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/69616 0 <![CDATA[A 2016 document reveals details of security meeting to impose a siege on Qudsaya and al-Hamah.]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/69462 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/69462 Thu, 10 Apr 2025 06:24:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/69462
A document dated August 17, 2016, revealed details of an expanded security and military meeting held in the office of the then-Security Officer of the Republican Guard, Brigadier General Qais al-Farawi.

The meeting aimed to develop a mechanism and operational plan for the siege of the towns of Qudsaya and al-Hamah in the Damascus countryside, with the participation of leaders and prominent figures from various Syrian security and military agencies.

Meeting Details:

According to the document, the meeting was attended by high-ranking security and military figures, including:
- Brigadier General Qais al-Farawi (Security Officer of the Republican Guard).
- Brigadier General Kamal Sarem (Republican Guard).
- Brigadier General Jawdat al-Safi (Head of the Political Security Branch "Damascus Countryside").
- Brigadier General Osama Sabouh (Commander of the 215th Military Security Company).
- Colonel Fawaz Jaloud (Scientific Research Security Officer - Jamraya).
- Brigadier General Samir Hassan (Republican Guard).
- Fadi Saqr (General Secretariat of National Defense).
Representatives of the Damascus National Defense Center (Center Commander, Damascus Center Commander, Operations Branch Chief, Information Branch Chief, Western Region Commander of the National Defense).



Meeting Focus and Action Plan:

The discussion focused on developing a "mechanism to besiege the towns of Qudsaya and al-Hamah from all surrounding areas and close security gaps through which infiltration occurs," through security and military coordination between various agencies.

The agreed-upon plan included the following:

- Preparing a military map: showing proposed combat locations, the expected number of fighters, the types of weapons used, and the locations of deployment and deployment around the two towns.

- Participation of the National Defense Forces: It was agreed that the Damascus National Defense Center forces would participate in the "raids" of Qudsaya and al-Hamah, in coordination with other security and military agencies.
- Distribution of Fighters: It was agreed to distribute fighters according to need for each front, with a special focus on the Qudsaya suburb, where the number of Political Security personnel required would be determined after the numbers of other fighters were counted.

Document Implications:

This document sheds light on the level of coordination and planning between the various Syrian security and military agencies in plans to starve the Syrian people. It explains the strategies that were being discussed and approved to contain and encircle the areas outside of control around the capital, Damascus.

It also highlights the pivotal role of the National Defense Forces as a supporting force in security and military operations at the time.
]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/69462 0 <![CDATA[German court convicts Palestinian man over deadly 2014 attack in Yarmouk camp]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/66203 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/66203 Fri, 24 Feb 2023 04:49:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/66203
A German court on Thursday convicted Moafak Dawah , a Palestinian-Syrian man of a war crime and murder for launching a grenade into a crowd of civilians waiting for food in Damascus in 2014. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Zaman al-Wasl was the first news outlet to reveal the identity of Dawah in July 2020.

The 55-year-old was arrested in 2021 in Berlin, where he had been living as a refugee. His trial opened in August.


The German capital's district court found that the defendant on March 23, 2014, fired a grenade from an anti-tank weapon into the crowd in the Yarmouk district of Damascus, killing four people and seriously wounding two others.

It said that he was the commander of a checkpoint for a Palestinian group, probably the Free Palestine Movement, and on the day in question also was supposed to be overseeing a distribution of food packages by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, the AP reported.

The court said that part of the district was at the time controlled by militias loyal to President Bashar Assad’s government.

The Yarmouk district, which grew out of a Palestinian refugee camp, was cordoned off by the Syrian government from July 2013 to April 2015, causing shortages of food, water and medical supplies.

The court said the defendant acted out of revenge against civilians in the district after his 25-year-old nephew was killed two days earlier by shots fired by opponents of Assad's government.

He was convicted of a particularly serious war crime, four counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and bodily harm. The court also determined that he bears particularly severe guilt, meaning that he won't be eligible for release after 15 years as is usually the case in Germany.

The verdict can be appealed.

Germany’s application of the rule of “universal jurisdiction,” allowing the prosecution of serious crimes committed abroad, led last year to the first conviction of a senior Syrian official for crimes against humanity.

Justice Minister Marco Buschmann on Thursday proposed reforms to the system. Those would include allowing victims of crimes against humanity and war crimes to join trials in Germany as co-plaintiffs, and providing for interpretation at trials for non-German speaking media.

They also would see charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes encompassing “sexual slavery.”

Dawah was one of the most prominent leaders in the Popular Committees of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC). 

According to the sources, Dawah, who was living in the Yarmouk Refugee Camp, south of Damsacus, participated in the rape of women from the Yarmouk camp in the al-Bashir Mosque, as well as in the Ali al-Wahsh massacre in which dozens of demonstrators were killed and arrested, and hundreds were disappeared.

 He was directly responsible for firing an RPG at civilians in Yarmouk camp during the distribution of humanitarian aid, and starving the residents of the camp as well as bombing and destroying the area. 

Dawah was one of the most dangerous leaders of the Palestinian militias, eye-witnesses said. 

After the outbreak of the revolution, Dawah, along with Abu Mohamed Sarriya, a senior militia commander, participated in attempts to suppress protests in the neighborhoods of Tadamon, Zahira and al-Midan south of the capital. 

According to an eye-witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity, “Dawah was one of the first people to join Ahmed Jibril’s militia, leading one of the groups that worked to suppress demonstrations in Yarmouk, Hajar al-Aswad, and Yalda, in addition to participating in the battles against the Free Syrian Army factions in the region.” 

Another witness said that Dawah was one of the leaders of the fighting groups in the military wing of the Free Palestine Movement, al-Aqsa Shield Forces led by Saed al-Abdel, which was confirmed by the photos obtained by Zaman al-Wasl’s investigation team in which Dawah and his group appear with the flags and slogans of the militia behind them.

According to the witness, Muwafaq al-Dawah is accused by Yarmouk’s residents of the rape of the women of the camp in the al-Bashir Mosque, which was documented by Action Group for Palestinians of Syria, and other crimes.




 


]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/66203 0 <![CDATA[Gruesome torture images of Syria detainees uncovers by new Caesar: Zaman Al-Wasl]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65612 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65612 Sun, 11 Sep 2022 23:00:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65612 Zaman Al-Wasl (Exclusive)- A gruesome collection of images of about 800 dead torture detainees taken by a new defected military photographer in 2014 in the Aleppo Central Prison. The images that recalls Caesar torture photos were leaked by the photographer to Zaman al-Wasl
  
Zaman al-Wasl publishes four photos of the detainees' bodies, who are a sample of a large file of civilian detainees who were killed by the regime in Aleppo prison, either by torture or by summary executions.
 
The regime's security documented them with names and numbers.
 
 Well-informed sources confirmed to Zaman al-Wasl that the four victims were killed under torture in the summer of 2013 by the regime forces, among a group of about 50 civilians.

The photographer has documented the death of 800 civilians, including hundreds of detainees who died under torture or in summary executions, in addition to 400 prisoners died of starvation and disease.

The "non-commissioned" officer Abu Ahmed (pseudonym due to security reasons) worked in Aleppo prison during the 13-month siege by opposition factions,  from January 2014 to February 2015, where his mission was to photograph and document the corpses.

Zaman al-Wasl is also based on the testimony of Abu Abdullah, a former prisoner who has been detained in Aleppo Central Prison since 2006 and was a witness on the regime massacres inside the prison.

After photographing the bodies of detainees and civilians who are being liquidated in the regime's basements and torture camps, Abu Ahmed was forced to write reports concerning these bodies, documented by a forensic doctor that they were bombed by "terrorist" groups.
 
Abu Ahmed said in a video recording to Zaman al-Wasl that regime officers and soldiers committed the first massacre against prisoners during the prison siege.
 
He confirmed that then-Captain Ayham Khaddour summary executed eight prisoners after making them look at the wall and directly opened fire on their backs following a prison strike at the time.
 
Abu Ahmed, who is one of the few soldiers who belong to the Sunni sect, added that there were detainees who died in isolation due to their poor health as a result of starvation and the extensive use of torture in various ways.
 
With the increase in the siege of Aleppo prison, which began in 2013, the suffering of detainees inside it has worsened due to hunger, increased neglect, rampant corruption among the officers and officers, and indifference to the lives of the innocent.

The new “Caesar” revealed to Zaman al-Wasl a large group of photos of torture victims, as well as the regime's burial of the murdered prisoners in mass graves in the eastern courtyard of the prison.


 
The defected officer confirmed that orders came to them from the senior officials in charge that the victims be documented according to an official death control by a forensic doctor who mentions the cause of death according to the desire of the regime officers, such as mentioning that the prisoner was killed by a stray bullet from outside or was bombed by terrorists.
 
Prison officials also used other means of torture and killing, such as beating iron pipes, or neglecting to treat patients so that they collapse and die.
 
 
1- Anas Kharqi, of Aleppo city, his body was numbered as 26 by the regime security. His body is full of traces of burns, wounds and severe deformities that covered him from his face to his feet.


 
2- Aladdin Mohamed Haskoulak, of Al-Sukari neighborhood in Aleppo, number 51, emaciated body and red-tinted legs, most likely as a result of blood flowing from an apparent wound in the middle of his thigh, most likely caused by a gunshot wound.


 
3- Ahmed Khalaf, of Haritan town, given number 9, deformed body and one arm almost completely, with a large and sunken hernia in the subumbilical part.


 
4- Iyad Farghali, of Damascus, who was given the number 53, and traces of abrasions appeared on his face, especially around the eyes.


Names and photos of Syrian army personnel who run Aleppo Central Prison and suspect of war crimes


In February, 2015, Assad's army ended a 13-month-long rebel siege of Aleppo central prison after a fierce battle.
 
Following its win, the regime focused remarkably on what it called the “heroics”, “epics” and “legends” of army soldiers in the prison, knowing that some of its soldiers and militias suffered a more severe siege, but they were not given a tenth of what the regime gave to Aleppo prison.
 
Perhaps the secret of this interest lies in the point of the sectarian majority that was in control of the prison, according to the defected photographer “Abu Ahmed,” and perhaps also in Assad’s appreciation for this group of criminals who were able to carry out what the tyrant desires, “with great dedication.”
 
Zaman al-Wasl publishes a list of the names of the most important officers who were at the head of their work in Aleppo prison, during the massacres committed during the prison siege, knowing that the ranks mentioned next to their names are their ranks at that time, not now, and they are:
 
Colonel Nidal Asbar Al Abdullah.
Lieutenant-Colonel Moaz Kizawi.
Captain Hussein Haj Ali.
Captain Raed Nadaf.
Lieutenant Jaafar Zuwaid (killed).
Lieutenant Jules Salloum (killed).
 First Lieutenant Waheed Darwish.
Lieutenant Aws Eidi.
First Lieutenant Amjad Hassan.
Lieutenant Abdel Hamid Tammo (killed).
Lieutenant Ahmed Ibrahim.


Aleppo Prison's images have recalled back the shocking 53,275 torture photographs which smuggled out of Syria by a military defector code-named Caesar in August 2013.

Human Rights Watch received the full set of images from the Syrian National Movement, a Syrian anti-government political group that received them from Caesar. The report focuses on 28,707 of the photographs that, based on all available information, show at least 6,786 detainees who died in detention or after being transferred from detention to a military hospital.  

 Most of the 6,786 victims shown in the Caesar photographs were detained by just five intelligence agency branches in Damascus, and their bodies were sent to at least two military hospitals in Damascus between May 2011, when Caesar began copying files and smuggling them out of his workplace, and August 2013, when he fled Syria, according to HRW.  
 
 Zaman al-Wasl considers this report as a public notice to all concerned human rights organizations and judicial authorities concerned with tracking down the perpetrators and holding them accountable.






]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65612 0 <![CDATA[Former security officer, who tortured detainees to death, arrives in Germany: witness, sources]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65553 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65553 Fri, 26 Aug 2022 17:32:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65553
A Syrian displaced person and former detainee revealed the presence of a Syrian war criminal in Germany after years of working as an investigator in the notorious Deir Shamil military camp in Hama province, where he specialized in buying and selling detainees and trafficking them. 

The IDP Hussein Warda told Zaman al-Wasl, who was arrested in 2013, that the bones of his hands, feet and face were broken by investigator Muwafaq Wannous, who Zaman al-Wasl confirmed that he had arrived in Germany and applied fro asylum in Berlin.




Warda, of the town of Karnaz in the countryside of Hama province and currently residing in a camp in the north of Syria, added that Wannous deliberately humiliated him inside the prison by putting his shoes in his mouth, describing the scene as bad and shameful, in addition to the continuous beatings throughout his presence during the period of his interrogation.




 Wannous ordered Warda to confess to killing 92 members of the pro-regime National Defense Forces  in the city of Salamiyah, east of Hama. When he refused, Wannous mastered torturing.

With the help of his security aides, Wannous used pliers to pull out his nails, and a hammer to break his toes, and it came to him asking for death to get rid of the torment, but Wannous was telling him, "It's still early."

Warda indicated that the investigator, Wannous, exhausted his body and tired him to the point of despair, which prompted him to ask a prisoner of a “fuel smuggler” to buy it from Wannous, no matter what the cost. Indeed, Warda was released from Deir Shamil prison after about two and a half months spent In torture and bribery amounting to 200,000 SYP (At that time about $400)  through this prisoner.

The former detainee noted that Wannous's treatment with him was different after he agreed to pay the amount.

He demanded that Wannous be tried in the country to which he fled, expressing his readiness to testify and present evidence to the court.

 Deir Shamil camp belongs to the "National Defense" militia, and is located 35 km west of the city of Hama, and about 7 km from the city of Masyaf to the east, centered on a mountainous area overlooking all the surrounding villages.

]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65553 0 <![CDATA[Former Syrian official who obtained asylum in Germany turns humanitarian worker]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65112 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65112 Thu, 19 May 2022 10:55:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65112 A former leader in the ruling Syrian Al-Baath party and former armed militia leader has joined the humanitarian work after arriving in Germany and obtaining temporary protection, a well-informed source told Zaman al-Wasl.
 
Amal Ezzo, 55, who lives in the city of Gostrof in the province of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in northern Germany, has started working with the “Get AKTIV-Mv” project, which is supported by several humanitarian organizations and associations, including the Migrant Organizations Network in Mecklenburg, the working group for immigrants and refugees in the state of Mecklenburg. Saxony, and the Tolerance Youth Organization", all of which are specialized in integrating refugees into society and erasing the horror of war from them, according to Zaman al-Wasl source.


 
"Zaman Al-Wasl" obtained a video clip of "Ezzo" during her meeting with a number of female refugees and refugees as part of a humanitarian project, in which she talks after introducing herself about the organization's project and provides a detailed explanation of it in German.
 
The Zaman al-Wasl team to investigate those accused of war crimes was the first to reveal the presence of Ezzo in Germany, despite taking all necessary precautions, staying away from cameras, concealing her identity and her previous work as a leader in the Baath Party branch in Damascus, which may hint that Ezzo is on a special mission in Germany, especially since she is fluent in German even before arriving Germany.


 
Through research and investigation, the investigation team was able to obtain certificates and photos confirming the participation of "Ezzo" in military activities in Syria through its supervision of armed brigades in support of the Baath Party, in conjunction with its responsibilities for training children to fight and carry weapons within the "Union of Revolution Youth" organization for the expedition.
 
Ezzo appeared in July 2014, accompanied by officers of the regime's army, at the graduation ceremony of a military course (National Preparation Camp for Damascus Youth), in which 355 young men and girls affiliated with the Baath Party, some of whom were minors, participated. 


 
The course included training in light weapons and close combat. In addition to the Baathist party education, which proves its involvement in the recruitment and training of minors to participate in combat operations with the Assad army and its affiliated militias.


 
Ezzo is originally from Al-Mabouja village near the desert city of Salamiyah and a member of the board of directors of the Iran-backed and funded Al-Quds International Foundation and the terrorist Iranian Revolutionary Guards, whose board of directors is chaired by Bashar al-Assad's advisor Buthaina Shaaban.

 
Zaman Al-Wasl previously published photos confirming Ezzo's return to Damascus in 2019, and her attendance at the Al-Quds Foundation's Board of Directors meeting, despite her residency in Germany and receiving temporary protection from the German Department of Immigration and Foreigners.

Throughout the 11-year-long war, an estimated 500,000 people have been killed and millions displaced. Syria today is reeling from a crippling economic crisis, while President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus remains in power with military support from Russia, Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah.

]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65112 0 <![CDATA[Senior officer in Assad's navy and blind bombs godfather turned a refugee in Europe: war criminals]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65097 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65097 Mon, 16 May 2022 22:19:16 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65097  Zaman Al-Wasl obtained information proving the arrival of a Syrian army general accused of war crimes to Europe, where he resides between Holland and Germany.
 
The information and photos belong to Major General "Shawkat Saleh Al-Ali", 69, the former deputy commander of the naval forces, who was accused by a source of being responsible for the "southern sand massacre" in Latakia, while another source confirmed that he is the godfather of "the sea mines that were dropped on civilians."
 
Al-Ali visited Switzerland several times, after the military intelligence approved his travel, where the officers were placed on a travel ban list.


 
"Al-Raml Al-Janoubi" massacre
 
The first witness confirmed Mohamed Naji that "Al-Ali" issued orders to bombard the southern neighborhood in Latakia, and the "Masbah Al-Shaab" neighborhood was also bombed, and the source confirmed that he was serving under the command of "Al-Ali" in the naval command, when the massacre of the "Al-Raml Al-Janoubi" district occurred, in which dozens of civilians were killed. 

The source revealed that the "Al-Raml al-Janoubi" massacre had another aspect of brutality, as the bodies of the victims that were buried under the rubble as a result of the regime's bombing of the neighborhood, remained in their place and were not recovered until several months later.
 
The importance of the source’s talk about Al-Ali’s actual participation in the massacre in the “Al-Raml Al Janoubi” neighborhood lies in the fact that all the published lists of those accused of war crimes in Syria did not mention the name of Al-Ali, which means that revealing his identity, his photos and his arrival in Europe with his family could lead It is a new turning point in documenting more names of regime officers responsible for the massacres, especially those whom many had never heard of.


Despite his high rank and leadership role, the absence of the name "Shawkat Al-Ali" from the list of those accused of war crimes does not seem strange, as the navy to which "Al-Ali" belongs still needs intensive efforts to document his role in killing Syrians, as this weapon has not received any Interest from those concerned with war crimes, compared to the ground and air forces.

The importance of revealing the name of "Shawkat Al-Ali", his role and his movements, in order to do justice to the victims who fell by the fire of the navy, which was a race under the leadership of "Al-Ali" and his ilk to kill the Syrians, since the early stages of their revolution, when the massacre took place in the "Raml alJanoubi, or the southern Sand" district in the summer of 2011, when the Syrian revolution was still in its peaceful phase.

Syrians killed with sea mines

For his part, the second witness, Aktham Younis, declaring his readiness to testify in international courts, said that Al-Ali had a prominent role in converting naval mines dating back to the Soviet Union, which were stored with the regime into a lethal weapon, thrown from helicopters like barrel bombs, but it is more lethal.


The source, who is currently inside Syria, added that with the efforts of "Al-Ali" and before him, Maj. Gen Talib Berri, commander of the naval forces, the regime was able to turn outdated naval mines into "blind bombs."


Al-Ali has been residing with his wife in Europe for a year, where he sometimes goes to the house of his young daughter who lives in southwestern Germany, who in turn visits Syria, in addition to the home of his two sons in Holland. 

This raises the question: How did a high-ranking officer enter the countries of the European Union and his family accept him?

It is noteworthy that "Al-Ali" participated in huge naval maneuvers with live ammunition in 2012 for two consecutive times in the same year, in the presence of the Minister of Defense at the time, Daoud Rajha, the state-run TV broadcast footage showing Al-Ali while the regime's naval were exercising naval missiles, helicopters and warships.





The naval forces participated in the killing of civilians in the coastal region, including Jabal Turkman area, as they turned as a ground force to suppress demonstrations, and their headquarters were used as detention centers and mobilization of forces under the supervision of military intelligence.

The Assad regime also, after destroying most of its helicopters that were dropping barrel bombs ("Mi-8" and "M"-17"), sent helicopters of the squadron (618) to naval helicopters ("Mi-14" and "Kamo F28") in the war on the countryside of Damascus, Hama, Idlib and others within the military operations of the regime forces and the sectarian militias supporting them there.



  Al-Ali is originally from the town of Hadidat Homs, his mother is Kurdish. He joined the navy in the 1970s, coinciding with Hafez al-Assad’s seizure of power. He studied and graduated from the Naval College in Alexandria (the 26th Batch), then joined the regime’s army to serve in it more than 4 decades, where he served for a long time in the 108th submarine unit "Romeo 633", then took command of the same unit, then was appointed head of the training branch in the Naval Forces Command, then raised to the rank of major general, and appointed Director of the Naval College, then Deputy Commander of the Naval Forces and was referred to retirement at the end year 2013.


]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/65097 0 <![CDATA[Syrian war crimes suspect is a tourist in Dubai]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/64713 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/64713 Fri, 11 Mar 2022 19:02:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/64713 ​​Zaman Al-Wasl obtained photos and footage showing a war criminal from the pro-Russia auxiliary forces as a tourist in the UAE city of Dubai.

 Saqr Shaheen, 49, a senior leader in the Russia-backed 25th Special Task Force Division, (formerly Tiger Forces), arrived in Dubai last week on a tourist and family trip where his wife resides and runs his business, according to well-informed sources.

Shaheen's visit was not the first to the UAE, sources said.

Shaheen was one of the first militants of the "25th Special Tasks Division", which was led by notorious Brig. Gen Suhail al-Hassan, nicknamed "The Tiger", as he enjoys a very strong relationship With al-Hassan and close associates of the Russian forces.


Shaheen (L) with notorious Brig. Gen Suhail al-Hassan (R)


Shaheen formed his own militia called "The Al-Shawaheen Regiment", the first unit of Russia's auxiliary "25th Division" forces that may join the Russian army in its war on Ukraine.

Shaheen, dubbed: Al-Saffah or the slaughterer, has participated in all the battles of the Division 25 special missions in northern and eastern Syria, including Idlib, Aleppo, Lattakia, and Deir Ezzor.  He played with his militia a major role in the assault on the town of Maarat al-Numan in January 2020.


Last May, Zaman al-Wasl published photos showing Shaheen alongside Samer Ismail, commander of the Al-Haidar Regiment" of the "25th Division" who is listed on the US sanctions under the Caesar Act.

Al-Shaheen hails from the town of Talkalakh on Syria-Lebanon border with Lebanon, in the western countryside of Homs.

When the spark of pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in Talkalakh in early 2011, Shaheen vowed to burn the town that revolted against the Assad regime, such a vow seems to be fulfilled in regard to his bloody militant act, 
local activists told Zaman al-Wasl.

 
The Syrian conflict has claimed 500,000 lives and has displaced 13,2 million people since it erupted in March 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-regime protests.
  
]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/64713 0 <![CDATA[Syrian refugee in Germany illegally entered Syria, met Intelligence officers: source]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/63567 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/63567 Sun, 26 Sep 2021 19:13:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/63567 Tariq Hassan Alour, Syrian refugee in Germany and former agent in the Syrian security services, has illegally entered Syria to meet officers in the Air Force Intelligence, a well-informed source told Zaman Al-Wasl Sunday.

His identity was revealed by Zaman al-Wasl in June 2020. 

According to Zaman al-Wasl source who is willing to testify before the German courts, Alour was an agent in the Intelligence 220th Branch in Sa'sa town with his father and uncles, leading to the arrest of dozens of Quneitra protesters, many of whom were either disappeared, detained, or passed away under torture. 

 Alour, originally from southern Quneitra province, has been living as a refugee in Mönchengladbach city since 2015.



Alour was part of the raids, arrest operations and military checkpoints in the southern region, especially in Khan Arnaba, Al-Saqri, Al-Sahraa checkpoints, as well as non-permanent barriers set by regime intelligence to ambush civilians.


According to the source, Alour has exploited the refugees in Germany and a few other European countries, procuring identity documents –especially passports that he acquired from intelligence branches, in exchange for large amounts of money. He has also worked in transferring money illegally to Syria, which allowed him to buy lands and real estate in his village.


The source added that Alour has helped coordinate and organize pro-regime marches in Germany. Zaman al-Wasl has obtained videos showing him at the head of the procession calling for loyalty to Assad and condemning the opposition.

According to our sources, Tariq’s father works as a security guard in the Directorate of Finance, where he has a great deal of authority due to his close relations with a large number of military and security officers, even before the revolution. He previously worked as a driver for a member of the People's Assembly. The source added that Tariq’s uncle, one of the leaders of the Shabiha militias of the Sasaa branch, was awarded an honorary military rank due to his great loyalty to the regime and the officers of the branch.

Although German law prohibits refugees from visiting their mother country, in 2020, Alour entered Syria through Lebanon with the assistance of his father and uncle, without passport stamps to avoid losing his asylum status. 



Related:
 
]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/63567 0 <![CDATA[Syria’s Rifaat al-Assad: From ‘butcher of Hama’ to real estate tycoon]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/62437 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/62437 Wed, 05 May 2021 23:55:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/62437 The appeals process for the trial of Rifaat al-Assad goes ahead in Paris on Thursday. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s uncle was initially convicted of money laundering as part of an organised gang, embezzlement of public funds and aggravated tax evasion. FRANCE 24 looks back at the long career of this Assad dynasty scion who amassed a colossal European property empire.

The French justice system is looking again at the case of Rifaat al-Assad, who was sentenced to four years in prison in June 2020 for a range of financial impropriety charges.

The Syrian president’s uncle stands accused of fraudulently building a French property empire estimated at €90 million – including two mansions in upscale parts of Paris, some forty apartments, a chateau and a stud farm.

Taking into account his British and Spanish property assets, Rifaat’s European empire amount to several hundred million euros, according to anti-corruption NGOs including the French association Sherpa, which brought the complaint against him to the courts in 2013.

A princely lifestyle

Rifaat al-Assad was born in Syria in 1937, and was brought up as part of the Alawite community. He has always insisted that he did nothing improper in the acquisition of his assets. This younger brother of Hafez al-Assad – Syrian President Bshar al-Assad’s father and president from 1971 to 2000 – said that it was mainly thanks to the Saudi royal family’s generosity in the 1980s that he was able to build his lucrative empire.

His allies say that the value of these holdings is far below the sums relayed in the media. Rifaat has long contended that his legal troubles and the criminal complaints levelled against him in France, Spain and Switzerland are a plot fomented by the Syrian opposition. He says he is being targeted because of his popularity in Syria.

But it is clear that Rifaat was by no means predestined to become such a tycoon. “During his first trial there was a long discussion of Assad’s rise to this vast fortune from a family of small landowners in Qardaha, northwest Syria,” said Fabrice Balanche, a Syria specialist at Lyon University 2, who testified as an expert at the first trial in December 2019.

“The size of his assets is out of proportion with the hundred acres of poor land his family possessed, 400 metres above sea level, on which sharecroppers cultivated tobacco and durum wheat,” Balanche continued.

Rifaat has lived in Europe since he was forced into exile in 1984 after a failed coup against his own brother Hafez.

“Before his exile, Rifaat was his brother’s right-hand man – and you could say this hand was highly armed; Rifaat was head of the Defence Brigades, an army corps composed of Alawites, the community the Assads come from,” Balanche said.

The Defence Brigades numbered some 50,000 men paid three times the average for soldiers in the Syrian army. It did the Assad regime’s dirty work – and its fearsome reputation burnished Rifaat’s ambitions.

“Syria saw a Muslim Brotherhood uprising from 1979 to 1983, which ended in the infamous Hama massacre orchestrated by Rifaat’s Defence Brigades,” Balanche said. This came after they massacred hundreds of prisoners in the Palmyra jail in 1980 to avenge an attack on the government.

‘You don’t kill your own brother’

After this Rifaat was nicknamed the “butcher of Hama”. At present, he is the subject of a criminal investigation in Switzerland by NGO Trial International for his alleged involvement in the massacre – which for many Syrians remains a pre-eminent symbol of the Assad regime’s cruelty.

“The Defence Brigades were also involved in stealing property and trafficking antiques; they have a powerful grip on smuggling, notably in Lebanon which the Syrian army occupied in 1976,” Balanche said. “Many of their barracks functioned as warehouses full of goods from Lebanon, such as TVs, VCRs, cigarettes and foreign beers.”

Far from being an ideologue, Balanche continued, Rifaat was someone who used his brother’s power for self-aggrandisement: “He was the little brother who imposed himself by force; his goal was to accumulate wealth – much more than Hafez had, seeing as the latter was primarily interested in power not money.”

Rifaat gained influence over the years – with the burgeoning of his clientelist networks and Hafez making him vice-president. This threatened his brother’s grip on power when Rifaat took advantage of Hafez’s hospitalisation to attempt a coup in 1984.

“Hafez spared him after this betrayal because you don’t kill your own brother; it would have upset their mother a great deal,” Balanche said. “It’s also worth noting that Hafez didn’t want to risk a civil war within the Alawite community, because at the time his younger brother had a lot of supporters – especially within the army thanks to the Defence Brigades. So Hafez expelled Rifaat from Syria with a significant sum of money so that he could bounce back abroad.”

Lavish exile and Legion of Honour

In disgrace and deprived of his Defence Brigade power base, Rifaat settled in France with various wives, many descendants and a squad of bodyguards.

“France’s intelligence agencies were very happy that he was there,” Balanche said. “Lebanon was mired in its [1975 to 1990] civil war and was occupied by Syrian forces – and in this context Rifaat constituted a precious source of information against Hafez, as well as a kind of tool to be used against him if need be,” Balanche said. “Some French intelligence figures even saw him as a useful intermediary in the arms trade – and as a potential pro-Western successor to Hafez.”

Then French President François Mitterrand made Rifaat a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1986. It remains a controversial move – in February, Sherpa and another NGO Trial International urged President Emmanuel Macron to withdraw France’s highest honour from Rifaat in light of the grave accusations against him.

An interregnum to Rifaat’s French exile came in 1992 when Hafez allowed him to return to Syria with a pardon, prompted by their mother’s funeral. He got back the right to do business there.

But the tide turned again in 1998. “Rifaat was declared persona non grata and stripped of his title of vice president because Hafez saw him as a danger to his succession plan in which his son Bashar would take his place,” Balanche noted.
 Bashar’s elder brother Bassel had been widely regarded as Hafez’s most likely successor until his death in a car accident in 1994.

Upon Hafez’s funeral in June 2000 Rifaat accused Syrian authorities of violating the country’s constitution by appointing Bashar as head of state.

“Now Rifaat carries no political weight in Syria,” Balanche said. “He might have created a party and launched a satellite TV channel [ANN] based in London – and he might have backed the opposition because he knew his only chance of regaining a foothold in Syria was through regime change – but his old adversaries weren’t fooled for a second.”

“After a lavish exile and dreams of ruling Syria in place of his brother and then his nephew, Rifaat’s last struggles are playing out in European courts – a far cry from both his Parisian palaces and his dreams of national leadership,” Balanche concluded.

France 24

]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/62437 0 <![CDATA[Three pro-Assad militants reach Greece as illegal migrants: sources]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/61559 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/61559 Sun, 28 Feb 2021 23:51:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/61559 At least three pro-Bashar al-Assad militants have arrived in Greece in their first stop to Western Europe from Istanbul, where they recently arrived illegally through Idlib, and where one of them was arrested then released only 10 days later.

According to Zaman al-Wasl’s sources, the three had previously worked as fighters in the Al Aktaa militia, affiliated with the Military Security in Al-Sanamayn, which terrorized and committed horrific massacres against the city’s people.

Amir Qassem Najeeb Al-Falah, Abdel Fattah Bassam Al-Falah, and Yazan Al-Falah live in an apartment on Akheroun Street, in Athens, known for the density of immigrant and human trafficking.

The three men planned to cross from Greece to one of the neighboring European countries thinking that they have escaped prosecution.


Abdel Fattah, Amir, and Yazan





The three young men come from one family from Al Sanamayn city in Daraa. According to our source, the three worked for years in the ranks of the military security militia in the city under the leadership of Thaer Al Abbas, who was nicknamed “Al Aktaa” and was shot in the market street last year.

“Al-Aktaa”, the commander of one of the largest militias in north Daraa, was directly affiliated with the Military Security and the Military Intelligence Division.

Another source confirmed that despite their young age of Amir, Yazan, and Bassam Al-Falah joined the military security militia, which committed a number of violations against civilians in the city and its surrounding villages and towns, varying from kidnappings, to arresting young men who evaded military service, pursuing opposition members, looting the property and homes of civilians, especially the displaced of them, and participating in the storming of Al Sanamayn on March 1, 2020.


Storming Al Sanamayn


Our investigation team obtained a video documenting the participation of Amir Qassem Najeeb Al-Falah in the military operation that targeted the city in early March 2020. After analyzing the video with the help of a special source from the city, we found that it was filmed on the outskirts of the Al Atoum neighborhood.

The video shows Amir filming other fighters during their clash with opposition forces, targeting civilian homes, and carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle. In the clip, along with the sound of gunfire, someone's voice can be heard calling cearly for Amir by name.

The source said that the Al-Falah trio left Al Sanamayn after Al Aktaa was shot and headed to northern Syria in June 2020. However, Abdel Fattah Bassam Al-Falah was identified by some of the displaced from Daraa. He was arrested in Sarmada, but was soon released 10 days later in exchange of money he paid to the soldier who arrested him. After that, he managed to cross to Turkey and head to Istanbul to join Yazan and Amir to head together towards Greece.
]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/61559 0 <![CDATA[Germany: former detainee to testify against Syrian refugee committed torture crimes]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60974 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60974 Fri, 22 Jan 2021 15:34:27 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60974
(Zaman Al Wasl)- A former security agent who applied for asylum in Germany was recognized by former Syrian detainees, revealing his involvement in war crimes during his service in the Air Force Intelligence.

Ubai Ahmed, the commissioned officer who was operating in the notorious Air Force Intelligence branch in Harasta suburb near the capital between 2011 and 2014, had tortured detainees before fleeing to Kiel province in Germany in 2015.

Ahmed arrived in Germany at the height of the influx of refugees five years ago, like hundreds of suspected war criminals, obtained asylum as a civilian fleeing the war.

 Ahmed Hamada, one of the former detainees and Zaman al-Wasl’s witness, had spent 14 months in Harasta Branch where he was brutally tortured by Ubai Ahmed and his fellow security agents.

Hamada was arrested on July 8, 2012 in an ambush by regime forces. He was kept overnight in the regime’s Ghouta military battalion, before he was transferred to the Air Force Intelligence branch in Harasta.

The former detainee did not know Ubai Ahmed’s name back then since he did not interrogate detainees, but tortured them while distributing food in dorms and solitary cells. He was also assigned the task of shaving the detainees’ hair and allocating new inmates to prison cells.

Hamada said that he will testify against Abu Ahmed in German and European courts.

Ubai Ahmed has tortured him several times throughout his detention in the branch and before he escaped on a forced labor trip outside of the prison.

According to Hamada, Ahmed used to live on the outskirts of Barzeh in Damascus and owned a bar.
According to one of Hamada’s friends who were previously detained with him, Ahmed and noncommissioned officer from Deir Ezzor named ‘Abu Jassem’, tortured Mohamed Abdubari, a detainee who suffered from heart disease, to death for asking for water.

Abu Al-Hassan Al-Zhouri, another former detainee, said the people of Al-Qaboun, Harasta suburbs had suffered greatly from Ahmed who used to arrest and torture their sons.

After his arrest and despite his injury, Al-Zhouri was subjected to torture by Ahmed, who flogged him in his cell with a cable when he asked for pain medication.

Al-Zhouri said that Ahmed was very close to most branch officers and, for unknown reasons, had more influence and power than some of them.

The main witness in this report was exposed to a lot of injustice and torture in Bashar al-Assad's prisons. Learn his story in the video below, produced by Syria TV in 2018:


]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60974 0 <![CDATA[Zaman Al Wasl reveals how war crimes suspect reached Canada as refugee]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60633 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60633 Thu, 31 Dec 2020 20:31:01 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60633 Zaman al-Wasl has obtained information confirming that a member of the National Defense militia, George Youssef Al Sheikh, is currently in Montreal, Canada.
 
Al Sheikh was part of the Sednaya militia operations against rebelling cities and villages, in the southern countryside of Damascus, which was known for one of the worst prisons named by activists the “human slaughterhouse” for the horrific methods of torture and violations committed.





A member of Al-Hout Gang


Several sources informed our war criminals investigation team that George Youssef Al-Sheikh is currently residing in Montreal, where he arrived two years ago as a refugee, in an attempt to flee the long list of war crimes that he committed against the people of Sednaya and Douma.



One source said that George is known by the residents and opposition activists from his hometown in Sednaya, and that he was one of the first to join the regime’s militias to suppress the peaceful demonstrations in 2011. Our investigation team was able to confirm this information by a simple Google and social media search of his name, which was mentioned in several publications written by George Saada on his blog “A Free Thinker.” Saada posted three episodes in which he spoke in detail about the crimes and violations of the mercenaries of Al-Hout gang in Sednaya, including George Al-Sheikh.

Al-Sheikh’s name was also mentioned in a publication by the Media Center in Qalamoun on Facebook back in 2012, in which they documented the names of ‘Shabiha’ in Sednaya. George’s name was listed among those who participated in arresting opposition members and in attacking the displaced people coming from Douma, assaulting and burning their properties as well as more severe crimes from looting and drug and weapon trafficking to kidnapping, murder, and rape.


Arriving in Canada


One of our sources confirmed that George is staying in Canada under asylum, arriving in the far north of the American continent as part of the “church asylum” program along with another mercenary claiming of being a victim of the war in Syria.
The same source said that George is currently living a new extravagant life with the money he most likely amassed in his past crimes working with the militia. 

The source concludes that is not far-fetched that Al-Sheikh was sent by the Syrian intelligence to spy on the refugees in Canada.





Zaman Al Wasl’s Archive


The name of Al-Hout gang in Sednaya was mentioned in a special report by Zaman Al Wasl documenting one of that gang’s crimes.

Our archive reveals that Al-Sheikh was fighter in the National Defense militia in Qalamoun:

“Name: George Ibn Yusuf Al Sheikh, son of Mirna - Date of Birth: 04/17/1991 - Place of birth: Damascus - Address: Sednaya, Ras Al Amoud - ID number: 8966154 - Occupation: a combatant.”



In a Facebook post published in May 2020 describing Al-Hout’s most prominent crimes, Ayman Abdel Nour, editor-in-chief of “All4Syria”, said that, “They looted over 20 villas in Sednaya. All of these operations were attended by head of the patrol Wael Barakat Azar, Alain Musa al-Khoury, Ihab Tawfiq al-Tali, Alaa Tawfiq Saada, George Youssef al-Sheikh, Georgie Samir Azar, Jihad Matanius Hilala, Michael Mirza, Faris Elias Hilala, and Sami George al-Ahmar. They deliberately spoke in the Alawi accent, stating that they were the army or the intelligence services to scare people.”

Zaman Al Wasl’s investigation team is looking into the other members of Al-Hout gang who left Syria and are residing as refugees, in order to bring them to justice as war criminals.

More than 20 years ago, Canada included universal jurisdiction over genocide and war crimes in its federal law, which means that the violations committed by George are considered criminal acts in Canada, even if they were committed abroad. Thus, Al-Sheikh can be prosecuted and brought to justice, especially under the Canadian Program on Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes.

The investigation team urges Syrian human rights activists residing in Canada to contact the program and to provide them with this information, which Zaman Al Wasl is prepared to confirm and to provide the necessary evidence and documents.



]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60633 0 <![CDATA[Wanted by Assad Intelligence, Sweden to deport Syrian refugee]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60602 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60602 Wed, 30 Dec 2020 12:55:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60602 Swedish authorities issued a decision to deport a Syrian refugee after completing his four-year prison sentence in March 2020 for kidnapping and assaulting a resident for competitive reasons between the two merchants.

A source close to the refugee Samir Ahmad Mardini, who is currently detained in the city prison of Sala in Fastmanlands province, said that the Swedish authorities had contacted the Syrian embassy in Stockholm about deporting Samir and to ensure that he was not wanted by Syrian security services. The embassy replied that Mardini, who was born in the countryside of Damascus in 1977, is not wanted for arrest nor would he be at risk if returned to his country, and that it is willing to issue a one-time Syrian travel document for him and to cooperate with the Swedish authorities to deport him.

Mardini is still being held either until the decision of his deportation is issued at the final session scheduled to take place on January 17, 2021, or in case the deportation process is once again postponed due to the coronavirus.

According to the source, Samir requested through his lawyer that his deportation is cancelled arguing that the Syrian’s embassy’s insurances are false since he is indeed wanted for arrest by the General Intelligence Department, as the documents shared by Zaman al-Wasl confirm.

In June 2011, Samir was arrested in Syria by one of the security branches (Al-Khatib Branch-251) and was tortured for three months, the effects of which are still visible. He was released after his family had paid a bribe to an officer in exchange for smuggling him out from al-Musa hospital, to escape after that towards Jordan and then to Sweden in 2014.

Samir requested that, if the Swedish authorities insisted on deporting him, his destination to be any country other than Syria. After his wife passed away a few months ago, he asked to be deported to Jordan where his 8-year old daughter is staying alone in a refugee camp, however, the Jordanian authorities rejected his request. Samir had previously lost his sister and his mother. 

Samir’s relative said to Zaman al-Wasl that he holds the Swedish authorities that issued the decision to deport him, fully responsible before Swedish law, international human rights law and human rights organizations, for what happens to Samir, whose life and safety are threatened if he is to be returned to the regime’s clutches. The relative called on Swedish authorities to take the documents presented and confirmed by Zaman al-Wasl as proof, and to repeal the deportation order against Samir.

While we can confirm that the information presented is authentic and taken verbatim from official documents and regulations, Zaman al-Wasl accepts no responsibility or liability for the safety of any person or persons who may rely entire on the accuracy or the completeness of the information contained within these documents, which do not necessarily include all the names wanted by the regime since there are multiple sources and lists that are subject to periodic updates.

]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60602 0 <![CDATA[German prosecutors charge Syrian doctor with murder, torture]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60407 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60407 Mon, 21 Dec 2020 19:16:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60407  A Syrian doctor living in Germany who was arrested on suspicion of having committed crimes against humanity in Syria faces more charges including one case of murder, German prosecutors said Monday.

The suspect, identified as Alaa M., was arrested on June 19.

He was first charged with two instances of torturing detainees at a prison run by Syrian intelligence services in the city of Homs in 2011.

But prosecutors said he now stands accused of far more violations than initially thought — including for allegedly killing one person and another 18 counts of torture.

Alaa M. was a doctor at the military prison in Homs in 2011 when he allegedly carried out horrific abuses including setting fire to the genitals of a teenager.

In 2012, he sought out a detainee whose wounds became infected and who had been transferred to a military hospital.

Together with two other officers, Alaa M. allegedly kicked and beat the prisoner, and poured flammable liquids on his wounds before setting them on fire.

He also kicked and beat the detainee, who subsequently lost consciousness.

Several days later, Alaa M. is accused of going to the particularly detainee’s prison cell, where he went on to beat and kick the 20 other prisoners in the cell.

One of them, named only as O., sought to defend himself.

“Shortly after, the defendant administered an injection with a lethal substance into his upper arm, from which he died a few minutes later,” said prosecutors.

Alaa M. left Syria in mid-2015 and moved to Germany, where he also practiced as a doctor.

Syria’s civil war, which started with the brutal repression of anti-government protests, has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced nearly half the country’s pre-conflict population.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group estimates that at least 100,000 people have died from torture or as a result of horrific conditions in government prisons.

Half a million people have gone through Syrian jails since 2011, it says.

Several thousand people have died over the same period in prisons run by jihadists or other rebel groups, according to the Observatory.

Having taken in more than 700,000 Syrian refugees since the start of the conflict, Germany has become a sometimes surreal theater where victims of torture come face to face with their suspected torturers in the streets.

In April, the first court case worldwide over state-sponsored torture by Bashar Assad’s regime opened in Germany — after the suspects were brought to the attention of the authorities by their victims.

The two defendants, former Syrian intelligence officers Anwar Raslan and Eyad Al-Gharib, are being tried on the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows a foreign country to prosecute crimes against humanity.

AFP
]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60407 0 <![CDATA[Assad militants in Germany: Yahiya Zakariya Al-Zarzour]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60357 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60357 Sat, 19 Dec 2020 23:05:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60357 Zaman al-Wasl has obtained information that a war criminal called Yahiya Zakariya Al-Zarzour arrived in Germany.

Zaman’s investigative team for war criminals was able to confirm the accusations against Al-Zarzour of committing crimes against Syrians by cross-referencing several sources.

According to our sources, Yahiya Al-Zarzour, born in 1992 in Daraa, comes from a family known for its strong loyalty to the regime, with several of its members joining Assad's military and security forces and his sectarian militias.

Yahiya was accused by several activists of participating in suppression of and arrests during a number of peaceful protests against the regime in March 2011, in Daraa. One source, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that Yahiya joined Assad’s militias early on in the outbreak of revolution for sectarian motives.

The source added that Yahiya, who was a student in the Faculty of Law at Daraa University in 2011, participated in the direct killing of a number of demonstrators who were arrested. As part of  regime security forces, Yahiya along with his uncle and other militia members would afflict the most severe forms of torture on the detainees before killing them.



Another witness added that Yahiya not only participated in suppressing the peaceful protests in Daraa, but later joined the ranks of the Iranian-backed sectarian Shiite militias that entered Syria to kill with sectarian motives, committing war crimes and widespread violations against Syrians, most notable of which is Hezbollah, which Yahiya joined and was in the ranks of military operations in various parts of Syria, especially Qalmoun and Damascus countryside.

With the fighting in Syria subsiding and regime forces, supported by Russia and sectarian militias, regaining areas previously under opposition control, like Daraa, which was reclaimed after the “reconciliation” negotiations in 2018, it seems that Yahiya decide to leave Syria thinking he would elude being held accountable for his crimes. In 2019, he headed to Turkey, and from there to Germany, to seek asylum and start a new life, believing that he can erase his past as a fighter in the ranks of sectarian militias that are classified as terrorist organizations in Germany.

One source said that Yahiya has a younger brother called Ali Al-Zarzour, who was also part of those militias and who had fled towards Turkey with the intention to reach Europe.

Our investigation team was able to access Yahiya’s personal accounts on the Facebook, in one of which he uses the name “Kumit Al-Asadi”, a name he used when he was in the militias. The account has pictures of him with phrases bearing sectarian connotations.

While Zaman al-Wasl’s inquiry into the file of war criminals is receiving attention from several official, governmental, European, and human rights authorities, activists believe that Germany's interaction with the files on “refugees” who are suspected of war crimes is still the weakest among EU countries.

Our investigation team calls on all our followers and readers who were victims of Yahiya Al-Zarzour or any other suspected war criminal, not to hesitate to contact us via e-mail or on social media.

A few days ago, the State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior Hans Georg Engelke, declared that, starting next year, Germany would allow the deportation of Syrians to their country, which prompted some to question the fate of those accused of war crimes and had infiltrated the ranks of refugees to seek asylum and evade prosecution.

]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60357 0 <![CDATA[With torture scar on his face, new witness confirms the criminal record of Raslan]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60112 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60112 Thu, 10 Dec 2020 02:13:53 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60112
The witness entered the courtroom in Koblenz with his lawyer and fiancee from the door for witnesses close to the present audience wearing a hat on his head, an oversized oily jacket, black sunglasses and face mask.

During the forty-sixth session, from the trial of the intelligence officer "Anwar Raslan", all the means of protection that the witness himself surrounded were not sufficient to prevent us from feeling his apparent anxiety through his walk. For the first time, one of those arriving with witnesses from their relatives chooses to sit next to the witness, as his fiancée did, and not to remain in the crowd.

The witness’s lawyer began by informing the court about the need to keep the witness anonymous, and about leaks and threats that may target his family members in Syria.

Afterwards, the defendant’s lawyer, Anwar Raslan, intervened: “I do not find a justification for keeping him hidden, it is natural for information to come out from the trial, as it is a public trial. Whatever we do, the situation in Syria is the same. People there are always wanted for security. What we do here will not change anything from the reality there.” 


The witness’s lawyer replied that the issue was greater than that, and started talking about a “fax” that was sent urgently the day before. The lawyer sent it to the court’s judges, telling them some of what had happened, without disclosing more information to the attendees.

* Evacuate the room
In the trial sessions of the defendants Anwar Raslan and Iyad al-Gharib, we, as the public, are accustomed to the occurrence of long discussions between the parties to the case, each of them attributing his request to conceal the witness or reveal him to a legal text, and their discussions end after the judges ’panel is convinced of one of the two options and a decision is issued in this regard.

Nowadays, everything was completely different. According to the witness’s lawyer, there is something dangerous for him, which made the judge go to the presence of the press and documented people and say: “Please attendees to vacate the room immediately.”

It was an unexpected surprise, that the present was asked to leave a public trial, meaning that the matter had become more than serious for them, and only the parties to the case had to be informed - without the public present - of the reality of the threat.

Five minutes was between asking us to go out as an audience and asking us again to enter, but it bore many questions among us who used to attend all the trial sessions so far.

In the hall, the decision was made in favor of keeping the witness hidden, it seems that what his lawyer showed them did not need much talk about it.

The witness sat in front of the judges, trying to hide the features of his face by the face mask and the black glasses. Each of his lawyer and his fiancée sat on his right, and on his left was one of the court interpreters.

The witness underwent two detention trials for the "Al-Khatib Branch" during 2011 and 2012, and he informed the judges in detail about these two bitter experiences; One of them left a permanent scar on his face, which I (the author of the report) could see clearly when I met him after he gave his testimony.

“They handcuffed me to a wheelchair and brought me into the ambulance department. Five fully armed security officers surrounded me and started shouting at the hospital, calling me a terrorist and a sniper, which led to a state of panic among the attendees who rushed to throw me with insults” he said.

“Then, a doctor came to me asking for my name, and before I answered him, one of the officers interrupted him saying; his name is 3. So, I simply turned to the number three. I think they wanted to obliterate my identity in the event I die in the hospital” he added.

Even the doctors and the ambulance department dealt with him cruelly, as he told the judges. At this point, none of us (those of us present) needed to see the hidden features of his face, to realize the magnitude of the pain emanating from his words.

After he was taken out of the hospital loaded with medicines and prescriptions, the security forces threw them all and tore up the prescriptions, saying, "You must die, not be treated."

On the second day of his stay in the Al-Khatib branch, he was summoned to interrogation, and he was barely able to see the luxurious office in which one investigator had distinguished his shape with a glance.

The investigator asked him about one of his relatives, and when the witness answered an answer that the interrogator did not like, he approached him and slapped him on the face twice, and then hit him with a knee on his stomach.


Corner in hell


“After I saw his picture on the Internet, after his arrest in Germany, I knew him. He was the one who hit me, it was Anwar Raslan, and I can confirm that  90% he was him,” the witness told the judges.

They asked him to look again at the accused, and to refer to him personally from among the lawyers and translators sitting with him. The witness looked at Raslan, and with a signal from his hand, he confirmed that it was him.

Although his tone of voice was sometimes shaken and his memory was exhausted with the details of the arrest that he had to bring to inform the judges after all those years had passed, the witness did not ask for a rest for six hours except twice, each of which did not exceed a quarter of an hour.

The witness did not forget to inform the judges about the deaths he saw in detention, about a young man whose nails were pulled out and severely tortured, and about another who lost his mind as a result of not sleeping and sitting for four consecutive days, as he began urinating in his clothes and talking to himself.

He also told them about children under the age of 15 who were tortured in a brutal manner and were placed in a corner of the "big dormitory" in the Al-Khatib branch, "a corner" that was designated for "hopeless" cases.

He told them about his suicidal thoughts during his second detention in the Arbaeen Branch (headed by Hafez Makhlouf) after he was parked next to the emergency stairs in the building, and there he decided for a moment to throw himself as a result of severe torture and despair.

He continued: "Infections were a very common condition among the detainees due to the intensity of the heat (because the ceiling was iron and the numbers were large inside the dormitory), and no matter how simple the wound was, it turned into a bad infection within two days.”

The parties to the case did not help the six hours of the session to ask all the questions they had, so they decided to complete the hearing of the witness the next day (on November 26), and during a session that lasted about an hour and a half, the judge ended it with the word "thank you", she said to the witness in Arabic, not in German , Announcing the end of listening to him.

In front of the main door and after everyone had left, I met the witness face to face for the first time. He did not smoke heavily or turn around as much as the previous day, his tone still bears some anxiety.

"I received a letter two days before my testimony from one of the media outlets stating that it knew I was coming to court despite my prior agreement with the Judicial Committee to keep my name and picture and everything that would reveal my identity secret, so how did it come to the press ?!, that was a sufficient reason to think not to come to the court." The session, I felt a real threat, it was not supposed to happen. "

This is what the witness told me in front of the court door, trying to clarify what the parties involved in the case had when they took us out of the hall.

He added: “After entering the courtroom, I felt that I was in a position of strength and justice.”

Reporting by Luna Watfeh



]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/60112 0 <![CDATA[Pro-Assad anchorman seeks asylum in France, leaves state TV]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/59756 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/59756 Thu, 26 Nov 2020 15:40:23 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/59756 Zaman al Wasl’s investigative team, which looks into the Syrian war criminals in the ranks of refugees in the EU, received information indicating the arrival of Rami Nofal, an anchorman in the state TV.

Nofal promoted the Assad regime and justified its crimes against Syrian civilians and contributed in distorting the truth since the beginning of the revolution until 2019. Based on the information we received, Nofal arrived in France about a month ago from Beirut, with a type D visa that, according to Nofal himself, was provided to him by the help of the former French ambassador in Damascus.



According to our sources, Nofal applied for asylum and an interview with the Ofpra was set only a few days after, a record time considering the average waiting time for such interviews takes between 3 months and a year.

One witness acquainted with Nofal said that, “At the start of the revolution, Rami worked as a French-language news anchor for the regime’s official TV channel and then later the Arabic-language. He also was part of the regime’s media team during the Geneva negotiations, more than once, after which he was promoted to hosting several live talk shows. Throughout 2019, his program, which he prepared and hosted, discussed regime military operations and celebrated what he called the victories of the Syrian Arab Army.”

According to sources, there are no evidence that hint at Nofal’s defection from the regime nor his support of the revolution. However, he seems to present himself as part of the opposition in France, which in one of his episode titled “Special Coverage of the Syrian Air defense responses to American, British, and French Aggression Against Syria,” he described as an occupying country that committed crimes against the Syrian people.

Our investigation team met with a defected journalist living in Europe, who said that, “After the start of the Syrian revolution and a series of defections of media professionals, everyone appearing on Assad's official channels requires security approval, since only trusted media professional that were approved by the security services were allowed to appear on live programs, for fear that they might say something against the regime or that may be inconsistent with its policies.

“For years, only media persons closest to the regime and those who support it were left. Any journalist defecting and joining the revolution or the opposition in 2020 is absurd. They are merely fleeing what they believe is a sinking boat, as an attempt to save their own hides after working for years in the service of the regime, distorting and obscuring the truth and justifying its crimes. And I am willing to testify before a court or before  .”

Our team met with Lahran Taha, who currently lives at the same building designated for recent arrivals seeking asylum as Rami and his brother, who told us that, “Since his arrival at the camp, he has sought to get close to the Syrian refugees here, getting to know their stories and giving promises of helping bring their families from Syria to France. He arrived with us in the same flight from Beirut, during which he claimed that he was opposed to the regime, which we later discovered was a lie.

“After we knew his full name and a simple Google search, we learned about Nofal's previous work for the regime’s media machine for over 10 years of revolution, and upon confronting him, his discourse changed to threats and intimidation tactics of a number of journalists living in the same building.”

The investigation team obtained a 15-minute recording in which Rami Nofal brags about himself as a proud supporter of  Bashar al-Assad, threatening some journalists and admitting to his past work, which was revealed to be known by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the French ambassador, and other ministry officials.

The Syrian Journalists Association took action and headed towards the refugee housing are in Paris, and contacted international organizations concerned with the protection of journalists to determine the best course of action and to ensure the protection of the journalists threatened by Rami Nofal by taking the necessary legal measures. 

]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/59756 0 <![CDATA[Assad militants in Germany: Jihad Nadim Iskander]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/57558 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/57558 Tue, 25 Aug 2020 15:05:29 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/57558  The recent marches, in which dozens of supporters of the Assad regime and its loyalists protested against the Caesar Law in Berlin, revealed one of the most prominent figures supporting this regime and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which is banned in Germany, with its two parts, military and political, which was classified by Germany on last 30  April, a “terrorist organization” and banned its activities, after it launched a security campaign in a number of German cities against the party's activities and organizations and mosques believed to have links with the party.
 
Jihad Nadim Iskander, a cardiologist who works in a German hospital in the North Rhine region, is considered the main official and coordinator of those pro-regime marches and allies in the German capital Berlin and other German and European cities, in addition to activities and activities supporting the regime, such as encouraging the recent financial donations launched by the Syrian embassies.



A Syrian activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity, has accused   Iskander of working with the Syrian intelligence services and spying on Syrians opposed to the regime in Germany, especially those who take out demonstrations and protests against the Assad regime.

The presence of this doctor provoked the anger of many Syrians in Germany, wondering how a doctor who is supposed to be human in treating patients and relieving their pain to his medical body, is supposed to be loyal and supportive to a criminal regime convicted of killing and torturing Syrians to death. It is a financial source for a banned terrorist party in Germany according to the German Ministry of Interior's decision issued at the end of April.

Iskander has pictures holding the Hezbollah flag and another in his office with a picture of Assad.



Three sources close to him confirmed that Jihad, born in Latakia in 1972, organizes all activities in support of Al- Assad regime, with an official mandate from the Assad regime, which published by the state's news agency (SANA) in 2014 a report in which it praised the aforementioned doctor who left Syria to Germany in 2000 to Germany after graduating from the Faculty of Medicine at  Tishreen University with a specialty in cardiology.
 
SANA praised his role in organizing activities in support of the Assad regime, such as marches loyal to and in support of the regime and its allies, entrusting it with the task of communicating with German society and conveying the regime’s narrative to it of what is happening in Syria, and denying all the massacres committed by the Assad regime against the Syrians, foremost of which is the “crime of the age” that Caesar law leaked photographs of it.

The investigation team for war criminals receives everyone who has testimony or additional reliable information about the aforementioned doctor to provide him with in order to complete his file and work to hold him accountable in the future by the means determined by German law.

]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/57558 0 <![CDATA[Assad militants in Germany: Mahmoud Arnaout]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/57316 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/57316 Sun, 16 Aug 2020 09:03:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/57316  
Mahmoud Arnaout is another pro-Bashar al-Assad militant who fled to Germany in 2018 after participating in the regime's military operation in the southern suburbs of Damascus.

Arnaout, 46, originally from the Yarmouk refugee camp in southern Damascus, lives in the city of Womrs in the Rheinland-Pfalz district, according to sources. 


Relied on well-informed sources, Zaman Al-Wasl seeks to track pro-Assad militants who applied for asylum in Europe. 

.Click Here to read all related stories

The Palestinian-Syrian citizen was one of the first members of the Popular Front-General Command to join the militia (Free Palestine - the military wing) led by Saed Abdel Aal, the political wing in it is headed by Yasser Qashlak, the real founder of the militia and becomes one of the leaders of the groups in it.

Arnaout, appeared in a report by the Russian Sputnik agency, along with Saed Abdel Aal and "Qishlak".



Zaman al-Wasl has obtained more pictures and videos confirming the participation of Arnaout in the incursions and bombardments that targeted the Yarmouk camp by the regime forces and the Palestinian militias loyal to it.

The Action Group for Palestinians of Syria said that at least 4,000 Palestinians in Syria were killed at the hands of the Assad regime forces and the militias supporting it.

 
It confirmed that about 1,800 Palestinian detainees are still in the prisons and detention centers of the Assad regime, in addition to 300 missing and unaccounted for.

Despite the Assad regime's constant trade in the Palestinian cause, for decades it did not grant the Palestinians who were born in Syria and spent all of their lives in it Syrian nationality, and only granted them Syrian travel documents with their right to reside in Syria, and with the start of the Syrian revolution in 2011, a large number joined From the Palestinians of the camps to the Syrians ’revolution against the Assad regime, and they paid dearly, like the Syrians, for this attitude toward the Assad regime.








]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/57316 0 <![CDATA[Assad militants in Denmark: Samir Maqssoud]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56836 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56836 Sat, 25 Jul 2020 23:07:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56836 Pro-Bashar al-Assad’s militants, who were involved in war crimes against the Syrian people, have found a safe haven in Denmark, escaping punishment and prosecution for the heinous crimes they have committed in the war-torn country.

According to activists, the Danish authorities have suspended the investigation against a potential war criminal, Samir Maqssoud, a Palestinian-Syrian citizen from coastal Latakia city, who arrived in Denmark in 2014 as a refugee.


Relied on well-informed sources, Zaman Al-Wasl seeks to track pro-Assad militants who applied for asylum in Europe. 

.Click Here to read all related stories


Samir Maqsoud, along with his brother, Ahmed Maqsoud, are suspected of killing, raping and looting in both Latakia and Damascus. He currently lives in Skibelundvej 9.

A source, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that Samir Maqssoud, born in the Southern Raml neighborhood, Latakia, has been one of the regime’s Shabiha since the start of the revolution. The source witnessed Maqsoud commit war crimes including murder, arson, and torture.



The source said that he has a picture of Maqsoud’s older brother carrying a weapon and stepping on a burned body. Ahmed Maqssoud was killed on February 25, 2019, while Maqssoud’s other brother, Bassam, is working with Liwa al-Quds (The Jerusalem Brigade).

Liwa al-Quds, a Palestinian militia operating as part of pro-regime forces, was formed in 2013 in coordination with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and includes in its ranks about 5,000 fighters, most of whom are Palestinians from Neirab refugee camp and some Christian groups. By the beginning 2015, the group had suffered 200 killed and over 400 wounded.

An eyewitness said that he saw Maqsoud opening fire on a peaceful demonstration in Latakia in 2011. As well as receiving orders from regime military security, he sometimes fought alongside other Palestinian factions. Later, he moved to Damascus to join the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA).


On May 15, 2014, Maqsoud moved to Hassi Messaoud town, in Algeria and from there to the Esbjerg region in Denmark, where he applied for asylum and obtained residence on January 30, 2015.

Maqssoud is currently working in construction and decoration, which was his profession before joining Shabiha.

The source met Maqssoud, who worked with one of his relatives, by chance and recognized his face from the demonstrations. After obtaining his full name, an acquaintance in Raml neighborhood confirmed that he was indeed the Shabiha member he often saw in Latakia.

The source contacted the Danish authorities about Maqsoud, offering pictures of him and his brother with weapons. However, the authorities did not seem interested to follow up on the information under the pretext that Maqssoud, too, was fleeing the war, and that the crimes he is accused of were committed in Syria and under the responsibility of Syrian authorities.

Recently, the Danish government announced a plan to review residence permits and fast-track deportations of Syrian refugees, claiming that the conditions in Damascus no longer warrant their protection status and that Syrians from the capital could safely return to it.


]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56836 0 <![CDATA[Ghadeer Ismail: another pro-Assad militant settles in Germany after committing crimes in Syria]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56656 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56656 Sat, 18 Jul 2020 13:10:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56656
 Zaman al-Wasl's investigative team has obtained credible information about a new pro-Bashar al-Assad militant who applied for asylum in Germany despite being part of the killing machine of the Syrian army and allied militias.

Ghadeer Ismail, a former fighter in the regime’s militias, succeeded to enter Germany in 2016 carrying with him the hatred and resentment he held against the Syrian people.

Ismail, 29, originally from Beit Yashout, in northwestern Syria, one of the most important human reserves that supplied the regime’s army and militia with the fighters, was a Shabiha (pro-Assad fighter) member who participated in the torture and murder of Syrians, along with his father and a number of his relatives.

Relied on well-informed sources, Zaman Al-Wasl seeks to track pro-Assad militants who applied for asylum in Europe. 

.Click Here to read all related stories



According to an eyewitness, Ismail joined the National Defense, and fought alongside sectarian militias convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity and human rights violations throughout the Syrian territories, including bombing and invading cities and villages and the arrest and forced disappearance of civilians. Ismail also participated in looting and destroying properties, according to photos that show him with other Iraqi militia members.



Ismail, left Syria to arrive in Germany in 2016, initially staying in Heim, a temporary refugee residence located in Heuchelheim, in Giessen town, Hesse, where he received secondary protection after claiming that he escaped terrorist and armed groups. 

Despite his claim to German authorities, Ismail openly introduced himself to everyone he met in the refugee residence as a supporter of Assad, blackmailing and threatening refugees with their families and relatives who still lived in Syria, if anyone mentions the regime’s practices and violation in interviews or everyday conversations. 


A number of refugees avoided him while other remained determined to expose the regime’s crimes in front of him, which led matters to escalate into verbal arguments, after which Ismail was expelled after several complaints from the refugees to the town of Giessen.

“Ismail was not satisfied with threats. We discovered that he has direct contact with Assad security services after a relative of one of my friends, who constantly confronted Ismail about his crimes, was arrested at Immigration and Passports Department in Damascus and was moved to a security branch because his son, who is in Germany, spoke against the regime,” the source said.

Another witness explained that after moving to Giessen, Ismail resumed spying on Syrian opposition activists and people who participated in demonstrations against Assad, pursuing and monitoring their every move, eventually threatening them publicly, which pushed a number of them to file complaints at the German police.

In addition, Ghadeer Ismail has been active in the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which on April 30, was classified as a terrorist party in Germany as well as being in contact with pro-Assad militants and intelligence agents in Germany, including Said Ilya.

German laws permit the revocation of refugee status, based on the four reasons listed by the Federal Office for Immigration and Refugees (BAMF), including:

1. He has committed a serious non-political crime outside the country of refuge prior to his admission to that country as a refugee.

2. He has been guilty of acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. 




]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56656 0 <![CDATA[Assad militants in Germany: Yasser Al-Asaad's profile]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56527 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56527 Mon, 13 Jul 2020 11:33:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56527  When Syrian opposition took over Idlib at the beginning of the Syrian revolution in 2011, dozens of pro-Bashar al-Assad militants and corrupt officials had fled the northern province to nearby cities, while some headed to Turkey and Europe like Yasser Salim Al-Asaad.

At the start of the revolution, Al-Asaad formed a Ba'ath battalion midway between Idlib and his town, with all of his family members volunteering in it, before eventually fleeing to Germany with two of his brothers. The battalion set up barriers, terrorizing killing and arresting the people of the area.

Our source said that Al-Asaad used to write reports on the people who took part in even one demonstration, sending persons to film videos of the participants to track them. After the area was taken from regime forces, he moved to Idlib with his brothers who then to Tartus, the stronghold of the regime’s Shabiha, while he headed to Turkey. Al-Asaad was able to enter Turkish territory through Bab al-Hawa, with the help of individuals affiliated with rebel factions, supposedly responsible for protecting the borders.

The source said that Al-Asaad paid around $15,000 to enter Turkey with his family—money that he gained through corruption and his work as a Shabiha member. He managed to arrive by sea via illegal boats to Greece a few days later, and then to Germany in 2015. Once he arrived he cleared his online presence from photos and publications that show his support for the regime, while his brothers continued to work publicly with Shabiha in Tartus, blatantly praising the regime on Facebook.

Al-Asaad is currently living in the city of Passau, in southeastern Germany, according to the source, choosing to live in an area with a small number of refugees, given his notorious reputation.



]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56527 0 <![CDATA[Assad militants in Germany: Mouwafak Al-Dawah's profile]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56412 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56412 Wed, 08 Jul 2020 12:34:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56412
Zaman al-Wasl publishes an exclusive report revealing the crimes of Mouwafak al-Dawah, the Syrian-Palestinian militant who applied for asylum in Germany after fighting for pro-Syrian regime militia in southern Damascus suburbs.

Al-Dawah had committed more crimes during his fight for the Free Palestine Movement (PFLP-GC), an armed militia fighting on behalf of Bashar al-Assad’s forces in southern Damascus.
  
The civilians at the Yarmouk camp were part of a crowd waiting for food aid when a man fired at them from an anti-tank weapon, killing seven and severely wounding three, including a six-year-old child, the German authorities said.
  
Al-Dawah was one of the most dangerous leaders of Palestinian militias, eye-witnesses told Zaman al-Wasl. 
 
He had participated in the rape of women from the Yarmouk camp in the al-Bashir Mosque, as well as in the Ali al-Wahsh massacre in which dozens of demonstrators were killed and arrested, and hundreds were disappeared. He was directly responsible for firing RPG shells on civilians in Yarmouk camp during the distribution of humanitarian aid, and for starving the residents of the camp as well as bombing and destroying it.
 
After the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in March 2011, al-Dawlah, along with Abu Mohamed Serriyah, senior militia commander, had participated in the suppression of pro-democracy protests in the southern suburb of Damascus like al-Tadhamon, al-Zahera and al-Midan.
 
According to an eye-witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity, al-Dawah was one of the first people to join Ahmed Jibril’s militia, leading one of the groups that worked to suppress demonstrations in Yarmouk, al-Hajar al-Aswad, and Yalda, in addition to participating in the battles against the Free Syrian Army factions in the region.”
 
Another witness said that al-Dawah was one of the leaders of the fighting groups in the military wing of the Free Palestine Movement, al-Aqsa Shield Forces led by Said Abdulal.
 
Germany has "universal jurisdiction" laws that allow it to prosecute people for crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world.
 
 
 







]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56412 0 <![CDATA[This is how to report war crimes committed by pro-Assad refugees in Netherlands]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56311 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56311 Sat, 04 Jul 2020 20:40:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56311 The Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) has reviewed thousands of files of Syrians residing in the Netherlands. The vetting resulted in the revocation of residency of dozens of refugees for their involvement in a variety of crimes amounting for some to war crimes, showing the Netherlands’ resolve to pursue and prosecute those guilty of committing crimes against humanity.

The Ministry of Justice has requested the investigation, with dozens of suspects between the ages of 17 and 35 being monitored and interrogated by immigration authorities. More than 12 thousand files were vetted, 63 of which were suspected of involvement in war crimes and other serious violations.

Somar Shaaban, a consultant in Almere municipality, said that every year the Dutch government monitors the security and living conditions in Syria using the reports issued by the UN. The IND has used these reports in its policy to give Syrians a five-year temporary residence, on the condition that the refugee learns the language and passes the integration courses within three years of their arrival in the Netherlands. While the security situation in Syria remains the same, their residency is extended indefinitely, which allows the refugees to apply for Dutch citizenship.

During the evaluation of some files, the investigators discovered that a number of Syrians were involved in fraud, while some were classified as “disrupting the national security”, which may indicate espionage or terrorism, however, the authorities did not reveal the nature of these violations, as they are considered as sensitive and highly classified files.

The Dutch Immigration Service considers that cancelling the asylum status of some persons is stipulated in the United Nations Refugee Convention, which affirms that asylum seekers suspected of ties to war crimes and other serious crimes are not entitled to protection.

Shaaban believes that the responsibility for holding war criminals accountable lies with the Dutch judicial authorities. However, according to him, the greater responsibility falls on the Syrians residing in Europe, who, by revealing and reporting any Syrian resident who had a hand in violating the rights of Syrians, whether individually or as part of a military organization or militia, can help the authorities to track and prosecute them. He stressed the need to provide evidence when reporting on someone, such as photos, videos, and testimonies of eyewitnesses that may help in the investigations.

Shaaban finally called on everyone who has such information about war criminals to present it without any fear of repercussions on their residency. They can contact the Syria Legal Network in the Netherlands, via this email: info@syrialegalnework.nl.

Or by contacting the International Crime Unit via the following contact details:

warcrimesunit@klpd.politie.nl
Tel +31 88 6625743
Postbus 100, 3970 AC Driebergen, the Netherlands.

]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56311 0 <![CDATA[New testimony against Syrian doctor held in Germany over detainees torture]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56218 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56218 Wed, 01 Jul 2020 12:32:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56218 A new witness has recently provided Zaman al-Wasl with new information about doctor Alaa Mousa, who was arrested in Germany on charges of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria.

The witness, Mazen (a pseudonym), said, “I was arrested in late 2012, on the Syrian-Lebanese border, and was taken to Military Security Branch 261, in Homs, where  I was detained for about 40 days, and was subjected to extreme physical and psychological torture. The prisoners in that branch were treated in imaginably brutal ways, and many died under torture.

“I was moved to a number of other security branches in Damascus, for interrogation, the last of which was Branch 235 of the Syrian Military Intelligence. There, I was put in a small cell, ,that initially held 4 detainees but eventually we reached 14.

“During my period of detention in the Palestine Branch, Mousa was present at the branch. He was infamous with the older detainees, who told me that he was from Al-Hawash, Homs. In the three times that I met him, he looked nothing like the doctor. He was a torturer, a jailer and an executioner devoid of humanity and mercy.

According to the witness, Mousa prescribed drugs arbitrarily without conducting any medical examinations, most of which were incompatible with the patients’ conditions. 

“One detainee, a Palestinian doctor called Noor, had diabetes, and died because of one of Al’s prescriptions, who was apathetic to our please to help him when his condition had worsened. He told us to let him die, which happened four days later.

“Another detainee, K. A., who arrived in the branch in mid-2013, and shortly after was taken for interrogation, but when he was returned, he was passed out. When he regained consciousness, he told us about the torture sessions he had just been through. He said 5 people laid him on a bed and started injecting him with all sorts of drugs all over his body, learning how to use a needle on him.

“ Mousa, who was present, might have been training these nurses or jailers to inject needles, or perhaps he was just doing it for his own pleasure and entertainment. K. A.’s condition contuned to deteriorate, losing up to 50 kg in just one month.

“ Mousa was a criminal and a Shabiha member, and held no respect to his profession or the ethics of the job, providing no help whatsoever to the people who needed it and who continued to suffer from torture and disease without release.”

Mazen also revealed that back then, Ala Musa has worked in drug trafficking in the security branches, embezzling money that is supposedly used on the medicine prescribed to the detainees. 

The witness gave an accurate description of Ala Musa, describing him as bigger than average, tall, with a full body and a whitish complexion. “We were not allowed to look directly at the jailers or the doctor, but sometimes we were able to steal glances. I saw him from different angles, and I am sure that it was him that I saw back in the Palestine Branch. I saw his photos spread on websites and social media pages and recently on a TV report.”

Zaman Al-Wasl has met with the doctor Mohamed Wahbi, an urologist who joined the military hospital in February 2011, and witnessed many inhuman, racist and sectarian practices by the hospital staff, including director Brigadier Ali Assi. Wahbi confirmed the witness’s description of Mousa, saying that is quite likely that Mousa has committed the crimes he is accused of. “From February 2011 to June 2012, I worked with Mousa, and he may have been assigned to the Palestine branch at the time.”

Mazen, who is residing in Europe, expressed his willingness to testify against Mousa in German courts, and that he can be reached through Zaman al-Wasl, provided that he is contacted directly by a public prosecutor or an attorney or a trusted organization known for its work on this file, as to ensure his safety and the safety of his family.

German law prosecutes criminals who reside in Germany and who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. In addition to Mousa’s arrest and the start of the proceedings of his trial, he will be stripped of his refugee status based on the reasons given by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, which state that cancellation is permitted if the person: he has committed a crime against peace, a war crime or a crime against humanity, as defined in the international instruments drawn up to make provision in respect of such crimes;
he has committed a serious non-political crime outside the country of refuge prior to his admission to that country as a refugee; 

he has been guilty of acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations."

On June 22, 2020, the German prosecution arrested Mousa at his place of residence in the state of Hessen, on suspicion of crimes against humanity.

]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56218 0 <![CDATA[Eye-Witness ready to testify before German courts against Syrian Intelligence agent]]> https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56209 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56209 Tue, 30 Jun 2020 19:30:00 +0300 https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/56209 Zaman al-Wasl’s war crimes investigation team was contacted by witnesses who relayed information and testimonies against Hatem Abdel Aziz Badawi, a former informant and contractor for the regime’s security branches. Badawi obtained a family reunion visa in 2018 where he joined his wife.

A witness, who stated his willingness to testify before German courts, said that he used to live in the same neighborhood as Badawi, in Zahira, Damascus. “Before the revolution, he owned a real estate office and worked in construction and furnishing. I will testify on the events that took place between 2011 and 2012, before I left the country.”




Before the revolution, Badawi worked as an informant for a number of security branches, including the Internal, Al Khatib and the Patrol Branch. He then started working with Branch 235, known as Palestine Branch. 




“During the demonstrations in Al-Maidan district in Damascus, I saw him with Shabiha (pro-Assad thugs), waiting for the demonstration to start to arrest the protestors. After he was exposed, he somehow convinced people that he assisted the demonstrators and persuaded Maidan coordinators to trust him. However, most of them were later arrested, after which he disappeared for a while only to reappear again with the emergence of popular committees. 

He was seen by several people leaving the ‘Palestine’ military security Branch in Damascus.

The source said that the pictures previously published by Zaman al-Wasl were from the period he worked in the committees, with their meetings taking place next to a flower shop, Marina. His role later evolved, with the people of the area becoming desperate to know the fate of their sons who have been detained by the regime. He claimed he knew where they were being held and promised their release in exchange for large sums of money, which contributed to his growing fortune that led to him buying dozens of buildings and real estate. 

“His acts of terror continued to expand to the point that he blew up a building as revenge, arresting the owner so that he could take over it. He also played a big role in the arrest and murder of his own work partner, Ibrahim Salloum, who died under torture.” 

Badawi’s close relationship with Major General Jumaa Mohamed al-Jassim, a known war criminal, as well as his sons, boosted his growing influence. The information that he provided them contributed to the arrest of dozens of young men in Zahira.”

The witness also confirmed Hatem’s direct participation in the arrest and torture of activists. “During al-Maidan demonstrations, my friend saw Hatem who recognized him. That same night, my friend was arrested, and disappeared for years, until three months ago when his family were informed of his death in prison due to an asthma attack. They received his personal papers from the military security branch.

“Another friend has also told me that Hatem was present and has participated in the torture and killing of detainees held in Shabiha headquarters.

“Hatem was in direct contact with an assistant in the patrol branch called Kinan, who in turn was responsible for the arrest of around 600 young men. In one of the photos that you published, I recognized one of Hatem’s friends, Abu Tariq “al-Hasan”, who gave free rein for Shabiha members to beat and arrest the protestors in the neighborhood. Al-Hasan, who is from the Daraa, always wore a military uniform and carried a wireless radio, with a gun on his waist.”

On the condition that he is granted safety and confidentiality, the witness expressed his willingness to testify against Badawi in German courts so he would be held accountable for the crimes he committed.







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