Thousand of corpi e human remains were found in Syria, near Damascus, perhaps coming from the political prisons of the Assad regime. Indicted in the US for torture the former head of the Syrian prison system. Today G7 online meeting on the situation in the Middle Eastern country after the fall of the Assad regime. The US Secretary of State, Antony blinken, is in Ankara. In Italy, the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, and the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni receive Abu Mazen. Meanwhile, at least 33 people are said to have died in a Israeli raid in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the center of Gaza.
Syria, the horror of the mass grave near Damascus
There are "thousands" of bodies and remains found in a Mass grave in Qutayfa, northeast of Damascus. This was announced Al Jazeera, which showed live images of the discovery of numbered white plastic bags containing the victims' remains. “These bodies probably come from the regime’s political prisons, such as the one in Sednaya,” explained the journalist from the pan-Arab broadcaster. “This land is about 5 square meters in size.”
Another mass grave, with white, green and brown bags inside, can be recognized from the road that leads from Damascus to the international airport. The first activists to arrive on the scene – the media say – identified the places of summary burial from a series of piles of earth in a row near the Fifth Bridge, an area south-east of the capital.
Syria: Former Prison Chief Indicted in US for Torture
THEformer head of Syria's infamous Adra prison, 72-year-old Samir Ousman al-Sheikh, was indicted by a federal grand jury in California with several torture related chargesThe man, who was in charge of the prison from 2005 to 2008, was arrested on July 10 at Los Angeles International Airport for visa fraud.
As director of Adra prison, al-Sheikh allegedly ordered his subordinates to to inflict pain and was directly involved in inflicting severe physical and mental suffering on prisoners. For example, he ordered prisoners to the “punishment wing,” where they were beaten while hanging from the ceiling at arm’s length and subjected to a device that bent their bodies in half at the waist, sometimes resulting in broken spines, according to federal officials.
Al-Sheikh began his career working in police command posts before being transferred to the Syrian state security apparatus, which focused on combating political dissent, officials said. He later became head of Adra prison and a brigadier general in 2005. In 2011, he was appointed governor of Deir ez-Zour, a region northeast of the Syrian capital of Damascus that has seen violent crackdowns on protesters.
“This is a huge step forward for justice,” said Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the U.S.-based Syrian Emergency Task Force. “The trial of Samir Ousman al-Sheikh will reaffirm that the United States will not allow war criminals to come and live here without accountability, even if their victims were not U.S. citizens,” he added, quoted by the CBS News.
