An observer of the Syrian conflict announced on Thursday, December 26, that the country’s new authorities had arrested a former head of military justice under the ousted regime of Bashar al-Assad. This man is said to have handed down numerous death sentences in the infamous Saydnaya prison.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Mohammed Kanjo Hassan was arrested in the coastal province of Tartus, a stronghold of the Assad regime, accompanied by 20 members of his entourage.
According to the Observatory, Kanjo Hassan would have pronounced “thousands” of sentences, including death sentences, against inmates of Saydnaya, a prison located near Damascus. This complex is infamous for its extrajudicial executions, acts of torture and forced disappearances, symbolizing the crimes perpetrated against opponents of the Assad regime.
From 2011 to 2014, during the first three years of the Syrian war triggered by the repression of democratic demonstrations inspired by the Arab Spring, Kanjo Hassan headed the Syrian military tribunal. He was then promoted to head of military justice nationally, according to Diab Serriya, co-founder of the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison.
Serriya says the former official often sentenced detainees to death in “speed trials” lasting a few minutes.
The association also estimates that Kanjo Hassan would have accumulated $150 million through bribes paid by relatives of detainees, desperate to obtain information about their missing persons.
The National Coalition of Syrian Opposition Forces in Exile welcomed the arrest, calling it “a decisive step towards justice and the prosecution of the perpetrators of crimes against the Syrian people.”
Since 2011, the Saydnaya Association of Detainees and Missing Persons estimates that 30,000 people have been imprisoned at the facility, while only around 6,000 have been released. The fate of the others remains uncertain.
