US prosecutors have accused 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 issued on Monday, two days after a rebel attack that ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad. The US, the United Nations and others accuse him of widespread human rights abuses during a 13-year battle to crush opposition forces trying to oust him from power.
The war, which 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 U.S. government against what officials say was a network of Assad intelligence and military branches that detained, tortured and killed thousands of alleged enemies.
It names Jamil Hassan, the director of the Syrian Air Force’s intelligence branch, who prosecutors say oversaw the prison and torture center at Mezeh Air Force Base in the capital, Damascus, and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, who prosecutors say ran the prison.
The victims included Syrians, Americans and dual citizens, the indictment said. The US-based Syrian Emergency Task Force has long pushed federal prosecutors to take action in one case, that of 26-year-old American aid worker Laila Shweikani.
The group presented witnesses who testified to Shweikani’s 2016 torture in prison. Syrian rights groups believe he was later executed at Saidnaya military prison in the Damascus suburbs.
The whereabouts of the two Syrian officials were not immediately known, and the prospect of bringing them to trial was unclear. Assad’s toppling by rebels over the weekend has scattered his government and left civilians searching prison torture centers across the country for survivors and evidence.