Dec 9, 2024 - Politics & Policy

U.S. charges Assad officials with war crimes in Syria

Rebecca Falconer

Residents in Hama set ablaze a large banner bearing a picture of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad hanging on the facade of a municipal building on December 5, 2024, after anti-government fighters took control of Syria's west-central city. — Hama residents set ablaze a large banner bearing a picture of ousted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad hanging on the facade of a municipal building on Dec. 5, 2024, after anti-government fighters took control of Syria's west-central city. Photo: Bakr Alkasem/AFP via Getty Images

Two top Syrian officials under the Assad regime have been charged by the Department of Justice with war crimes against Americans and others, according to a U.S. indictment that was unsealed on Monday.

The big picture: Former Syrian Air Force Intelligence officers Jamil Hassan, 72, and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, 65, have been charged with conspiracy to commit a war crime of cruel and inhuman treatment, marking the first time the U.S. has brought charges against Assad officials for human rights abuses.

They're accused of "cruel and inhuman treatment on detainees under their control, including U.S. citizens, in detention facilities at the Mezzeh Military Airport (Mezzeh Prison), near Damascus, Syria," from 2012 to 2019, per a DOJ statement Monday.

Zoom in: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime "sought to terrify, intimidate, and repress any opposition, or perceived opposition, to the Regime" during the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011, per the indictment that was filed in the Northern District of Illinois.

Hassan and Mahmoud allegedly "whipped, kicked, electrocuted, and burned their victims; hung them by their wrists for prolonged periods of time; threatened them with rape and death," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in statement.
It's alleged they also falsely told detainees that their family members had been killed.

What we're watching: Arrest warrants have been issued for the men, who remain at large.

Zoom out: Hassan and Mahmoud were tried in absentia in France and convicted of crimes against humanity earlier this year.

The charges were brought against the pair and another Syrian official over the "imprisonment, enforced disappearance and torture of two dual Syrian-French citizens," per Human Rights Watch.

Read the indictment in full, via DocumentCloud:

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U.S. charges Assad officials with war crimes in Syria

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