A former Syrian official has been arrested in California who oversaw a prison charged with torture

Los Angeles – A former Syrian military officer who oversaw a prison where alleged human rights abuses took place has been charged with multiple counts of torture after being arrested in July on visa fraud charges, authorities said Thursday.

Samir Ousman al-Sheikh, who oversaw Syria’s notorious Adra prison from 2005 to 2008 under recently ousted President Bashar Assad, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on multiple counts of torture and conspiracy to commit torture.

“It’s a big step towards justice,” said Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the US-based Syrian Emergency Task Force. “The case of Samir Ousman al-Sheikh will reiterate that the United States will not allow war criminals to remain in the United States without accountability, even if their victims were not US citizens.”

Federal officials arrested the 72-year-old in July at Los Angeles International Airport on charges of immigration fraud, specifically that he denied on his U.S. visa and citizenship applications that he had persecuted anyone in Syria, according to a criminal complaint. He had purchased a one-way flight ticket from LAX on July 10, bound for Beirut, Lebanon.

Human rights groups and United Nations officials have accused the Syrian government of widespread abuses in detention facilities, including the torture and arbitrary detention of thousands of people, in many cases without informing their families.

The government fell to a surprise rebel attack last Sunday, ending the Assad family’s 50-year rule and sending the former president fleeing to Russia. The insurgents have freed tens of thousands of prisoners from facilities in many cities since then.

In his role as head of Adra Prison, al-Sheikh allegedly ordered subordinates to torture and was directly involved in inflicting severe physical and mental pain on prisoners.

He ordered prisoners to the “Punishment Wing,” where they were beaten while hanging from the ceiling with their arms outstretched and placed in a machine that folded their bodies in half at the waist, sometimes resulting in spinal fractures, according to government officials.

“Our client strongly denies these politically motivated and false allegations,” her attorney, Nina Marino, said in an emailed statement.

Marino called the case an “improper use” of federal resources by the US Department of Justice “to prosecute a foreign national for alleged crimes committed in another country against non-US citizens.”

US authorities accused two Syrian officials of running a prison and torture center at the Mezzeh air force base in the capital Damascus in a case that was not opened on Monday. The victims included Syrians, Americans and two civilians, including 26-year-old American aid worker Layla Shweikani, according to prosecutors and the Syrian Emergency Task Force.

Federal prosecutors say they have issued arrest warrants for the two officials, who are still at large.

In May, a French court sentenced three Syrian officials to life imprisonment for complicity in war crimes in a symbolic but historic trial against the Assad regime and the first of its kind in Europe.

Al-Sheikh began his career in the police before moving to the Syrian government’s security forces, which focused on fighting political opposition, officials said. He later became the head of Adra Prison and brigadier general in 2005. In 2011, he was appointed governor of Deir ez-Zour, a district northeast of the Syrian capital, Damascus, where there was violence against protesters.

The lawsuit alleges that al-Sheikh immigrated to the US in 2020 and applied for citizenship in 2023.

If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit torture and each of the three counts of torture, and a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for each of the two counts of immigration fraud.