US prosecutors are accusing two senior Syrian officials of overseeing a notorious torture center that abused peaceful protesters, including a 26-year-old American woman who was later believed to have been executed.
The indictment was announced on Monday, two days later a shock rebel offensive toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad. The United States, the UN and others accuse him of widespread human rights abuses in a 13-year battle to crush opposition forces calling for his removal from power.
the warwhich began as a largely nonviolent popular uprising in 2011, has killed half a million people.
The indictment, filed Nov. 18 in federal court in Chicago, is believed to be the first by the US government against what officials say were networks of Assad’s intelligence services and military branches that detained , torturing and killing thousands of perceived enemies.
It names Jamil Hassan, director of the Syrian Air Force’s intelligence branch, who prosecutors say oversaw a prison and torture center at Mezzeh Air Force Base in the capital, Damascus, and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, who prosecutors say ran the prison.
The victims included Syrians, Americans and dual nationals, according to the indictment. The US-based Syrian Emergency Task Force has long pressed federal prosecutors to act in one case, that of 26-year-old American aid worker Layla Shweikani.
The group presented witnesses who testified about the torture of Shweikani in 2016 in prison. Syrian rights groups believe she was later executed at the Saydnaya military prison in the suburbs of Damascus.
The whereabouts of the two Syrian officials were not immediately known and the prospects for bringing them to trial were unclear. The toppling of Assad by rebels over the weekend has scattered his government and left citizens scouring prison torture centers across the country for survivors and evidence.