DAMASCUS – Syria’s new authorities have arrested a military justice official who under ousted president Bashar al-Assad issued death sentences for detainees in the notorious Saydnaya prison, a war monitor said. The confirmation by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights of his detention came a day after deadly clashes erupted in the coastal province of Tartus, an Assad stronghold, when gunmen sought to protect him.
Mohammed Kanjo Hassan is the highest-ranking officer whose arrest has been announced since Assad’s ousting on Dec. 8. Assad fled for Russia after an Islamist-led offensive wrested from his control city after city until Damascus fell, ending his clan’s five-decade rule and sparking celebrations in Syria and beyond. The offensive caught Assad and his inner circle by surprise and while fleeing the country he took with him only a handful of confidants. Many others were left behind, including his brother Maher al-Assad, who according to a Syrian military source fled to Iraq before heading to Russia. Other collaborators were believed to have taken refuge in their hometowns in Alawite regions that were once a stronghold of the Assad clan. According to the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison, Kanjo Hassan headed Syria’s military field court from 2011 to 2014, the first three years of the war that began with Assad’s crackdown on Arab Spring-inspired democracy protests. He was later promoted to chief of military justice nationwide, the group’s co-founder Diab Serriya said, adding that he sentenced “thousands of people” to death. The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomized the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents. The fate of tens of thousands of prisoners and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of his rul
SYRIA ARRESTS BASHAR AL-ASSAD SAYDNAYA PRISON MILITARY JUSTICE
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