Former Syrian official sentenced to 60 years in US jail for torturing prisoners below al-Assad’s regime.
A former Syrian navy official convicted of torturing prisoners throughout the rule of former President Bashar al-Assad has been sentenced to 60 years in a United States jail.
A federal choose in Los Angeles sentenced Samir Ousman Alsheikh on Thursday. A jury discovered him responsible in March of 1 depend of conspiracy to commit torture and three counts of torture whereas accountable for Syria‘s notorious Adra Jail from roughly 2005 to 2008.
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“The conduct was heinous, unimaginably merciless, and virtually unspeakably violent and brutal,” the choose mentioned earlier than saying the sentence.
Human rights teams and the United Nations have accused the Syrian authorities officers of widespread abuses in detention services, together with torture and arbitrary detention of 1000’s of individuals, in lots of instances with out informing their households.
US prosecutors mentioned Alsheikh, searching for to quash political dissent, despatched sure prisoners to a wing of Adra the place they have been held in small isolation cells and tortured.
On the two-week trial, three victims recounted beatings whereas suspended from pipes on the ceiling for hours or days and using a tool that folded their our bodies in half on the waist, in response to a press launch from the US Division of Justice. One individual testified that Alsheikh stomped on the gadget along with his foot, in response to the division.
“Defendant knew that what he was doing was flawed,” Justice Division prosecutors mentioned in a sentencing memo filed this month. “Nonetheless, he ordered and took part within the torture of his victims as a result of he had the ability to take action and since he thought he would by no means be held accountable.”
The memo included statements from a number of victims, one in every of whom, Nidal Shikhani, mentioned he can “nonetheless hear the screams of others begging for mercy, repeating, ‘Go away me, depart me.’”
The prosecutors requested US District Choose Hernan D Vera for a minimal sentence of 80 years. Alsheikh’s legal professionals, Nina Marino and Collin Cate, referred to as for a five-year sentence, noting that he’s 74 years outdated and has “vital medical and cognitive circumstances”. Additionally they mentioned he was keen to be deported to Syria, the place a brand new authorities has sought to carry Assad-era safety officers accountable.
“No matter ethical weight this case carries within the broader arc of historical past — nevertheless a lot the world, or the victims, or the general public may want the sentence to ‘ship a message’ — that want can’t be the inspiration of a simply sentence,” Marino and Cate wrote of their September 3 memo.
Alsheikh got here to the US in 2020 and utilized for citizenship, however the Justice Division mentioned he lied about his previous. Federal authorities arrested him at Los Angeles worldwide airport in July 2024.
Jurors additionally convicted him in March of mendacity to US immigration authorities and fraudulently acquiring a inexperienced card and making an attempt to naturalise as a US citizen.
“The acts Alsheikh ordered and instantly participated in are ugly and disturbing. We want to provide our gratitude to the courageous victims who testified resulting in as we speak’s sentencing,” Heith Janke, assistant director of the FBI’s felony division, mentioned in a press launch Thursday.
Al-Assad was ousted in a lightning insurgent offensive in December 2024, bringing a 14-year civil struggle to an finish, however the nation has continued to endure from sporadic outbreaks of violence.
In March 2025, armed teams aligned with al-Assad ambushed the brand new authorities’s safety forces on Syria’s coast. A authorities counteroffensive then spiralled into sectarian revenge assaults and the bloodbath of tons of of civilians from the Alawite non secular minority, to which al-Assad belongs.
On Thursday, three folks have been sentenced within the Syrian metropolis of Aleppo in reference to the violence. One member of the pro-Assad teams was sentenced to demise and one other to life in jail, whereas a member of the federal government safety forces who took half within the revenge assaults was convicted of homicide and sentenced to twenty years in jail.
