Syria arrests ex-military official in charge of notorious Sednaya prison

During the rule of former President Bashar al-Assad, Syrian authorities have said they have detained a former military official who is accused of carrying out detainee executions at the notorious Sednaya prison.

Major General Akram Salloum al-Abdullah was detained by the interior ministry in a statement released on Wednesday.

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He was cited as holding “several positions,” most notably as the defense ministry’s commander between 2014 and 2015, while the former regime was in power.

According to the ministry, Abdullah was “implicated in serious violations against detainees in Sednaya prison” and that he was “directly responsible for carrying out the executions of detainees inside Sednaya military prison” while serving as the military police commander.

Human slaughterhouse

One of the darkest aspects of al-Assad’s family rule, which ended with the death of Bashar al-Assad in December, the prison was located outside Damascus.

The facility has been referred to as a “human slaughterhouse” by Amnesty International, a rights organization.

Since 2011 when the country’s war broke out, murder, torture, extortion, and extermination have been common at the prison, according to a 2017 report from Amnesty International. These behaviors constitute crimes against humanity, according to the rights group.

According to former prison detainees, a 2014 report from Human Rights Watch confirmed these claims about the facility’s frequent mass deaths.

Sednaya Prison’s Association of Detainees and Missing Persons estimates that about 6, 000 people were detained there from 2011 to 2011, while only about 6, 000 have been released.

The others are still missing.

Abdullah is “the highest-ranked individual” to be detained over Sednaya to date, according to Diab Serriya, cofounder of the association.

Serriya claimed that the prison’s military police were in charge during Abdullah’s regime, and that many prisoners were subjected to torture and executions.

He claimed to the AFP news agency that “he is accountable for those crimes.”

Serriya added that during Abdullah’s rule, Sednaya’s so-called “salt rooms” were established as “served as warehouses for storing bodies pending their transfer to mass graves.”

50 to 100 people were executed daily in the prison, which largely housed political prisoners who opposed al-Assad’s rule, according to Syria’s Civil Defense, the White Helmets.