Syria authorities arrest official behind Saydnaya death penalties

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 Thursday.

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, a stronghold of al-Assad, when gunmen sought to protect him.

Mohammed Kanjo Hassan is the highest-ranking officer whose arrest has been announced since al-Assad’s ousting on December 8.

Assad fled for Russia after an opposition 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 al-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 al-Assad clan.

Thousands of death sentences

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 al-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 al-Assad’s opponents.

The fate of tens of thousands of prisoners and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of his rule.

After 13 years of civil war, Syria’s new leaders from the “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” (HTS) group face the monumental task of safeguarding the multi-confessional, multi-ethnic country from further collapse.

With its roots in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim militant group, HTS has moderated its rhetoric and vowed to ensure protection for minorities, including the Alawite community from which al-Assad hails.

With 500,000 killed in the war and more than 100,000 still missing, the new authorities have also pledged justice for the victims of abuses under the deposed ruler.

They also face the substantial task of restoring security to a country ravaged by war and where arms have become ubiquitous.

During the offensive that precipitated al-Assad’s ousting, opposition fighters flung open the doors of prisons and detention centers around the country, letting out thousands of people.

In central Damascus, relatives of some of the missing have hung up posters of their loved ones in the hope that with al-Assad gone, they may one day learn what happened to them.

World powers and international organizations have called for the urgent establishment of mechanisms for accountability.

With the judiciary not yet reorganized since al-Assad’s toppling, it is unclear how detainees suspected of crimes linked to the former authorities will be tried.

Some members of the Alawite community fear that with al-Assad gone, they will be at risk of attacks from groups hungry for revenge or driven by sectarian hate.

On Thursday, the information ministry introduced a ban on publishing or distributing “any content or information with a sectarian nature aimed at spreading division and discrimination.”

Al-Assad long presented himself as a protector of minority groups in Sunni-majority Syria, though critics said he played on sectarian divisions to stay in power.