Former Assad officer sentenced to 60 years in US for torture

Former Syrian official sentenced to 60 years in US prison for torturing prisoners under al-Assad’s regime.

The US Department of Justice logo is seen on a podium in Washington, DC [File: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP]

A former Syrian military official convicted of torturing prisoners during the rule of former President Bashar al-Assad has been sentenced to 60 years in a United States prison.

A federal judge in Los Angeles sentenced Samir Ousman Alsheikh on Thursday. A jury found him guilty in March of one count of conspiracy to commit torture and three counts of torture while in charge of Syria ‘s infamous Adra Prison from roughly 2005 to 2008.

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“The conduct was heinous, unimaginably cruel, and almost unspeakably violent and brutal,” the judge said before announcing the sentence.

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

US prosecutors said Alsheikh, seeking to quash political dissent, sent certain prisoners to a wing of Adra where they were held in small isolation cells and tortured.

At the two-week trial, three victims recounted beatings while suspended from pipes on the ceiling for hours or days and the use of a device that folded their bodies in half at the waist, according to a press release from the US Department of Justice. One person testified that Alsheikh stomped on the device with his foot, according to the department.

“Defendant knew that what he was doing was wrong,” Justice Department prosecutors said in a sentencing memo filed this month. “Nonetheless, he ordered and participated in the torture of his victims because he had the power to do so and because he thought he would never be held accountable.”

The memo included statements from several victims, one of whom, Nidal Shikhani, said he can “still hear the screams of others begging for mercy, repeating, ‘Leave me, leave me.’”

The prosecutors asked US District Judge Hernan D Vera for a minimum sentence of 80 years. Alsheikh’s lawyers, Nina Marino and Collin Cate, called for a five-year sentence, noting that he is 74 years old and has “significant medical and cognitive conditions”. They also said he was willing to be deported to Syria, where a new government has sought to hold Assad-era security officials accountable.

“Whatever moral weight this case carries in the broader arc of history — however much the world, or the victims, or the public might wish the sentence to ‘send a message’ — that desire cannot be the foundation of a just sentence,” Marino and Cate wrote in their September 3 memo.

Alsheikh came to the US in 2020 and applied for citizenship, but the Justice Department said he lied about his past. Federal authorities arrested him at Los Angeles international airport in July 2024.

Jurors also convicted him in March of lying to US immigration authorities and fraudulently obtaining a green card and attempting to naturalise as a US citizen.

“The acts Alsheikh ordered and directly participated in are gruesome and disturbing. We would like to offer our gratitude to the brave victims who testified leading to today’s sentencing,” Heith Janke, assistant director of the FBI’s criminal division, said in a press release Thursday.

Al-Assad was ousted in a lightning rebel offensive in December 2024, bringing a 14-year civil war to an end, but the country has continued to suffer from sporadic outbreaks of violence.

In March 2025, armed groups aligned with al-Assad ambushed the new government’s security forces on Syria’s coast. A government counteroffensive then spiralled into sectarian revenge attacks and the massacre of hundreds of civilians from the Alawite religious minority, to which al-Assad belongs.

On Thursday, three people were sentenced in the Syrian city of Aleppo in connection with the violence. One member of the pro-Assad groups was sentenced to death and another to life in prison, while a member of the government security forces who took part in the revenge attacks was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

一名叙利亚前官员因在阿萨德政权统治下虐待囚犯，被判处60年美国监禁。

美国司法部标志出现在华盛顿特区的一个讲台上。[图片：Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP]

一名叙利亚前军官因在前总统巴沙尔·阿萨德统治时期虐待囚犯而被定罪，被判处在美国监狱服刑 60 年。

洛杉矶一名联邦法官周四对萨米尔·奥斯曼·阿尔谢赫作出判决。今年3月，陪审团认定他犯有一项共谋实施酷刑罪和三项酷刑罪，这些罪行发生在他大约2005年至2008年期间，当时他负责管理叙利亚臭名昭著的阿德拉监狱。

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“这种行为令人发指，残忍至极，暴力和野蛮到几乎难以言喻，”法官在宣布判决前说道。

人权组织和联合国指责叙利亚政府官员在拘留设施中存在广泛的虐待行为，包括酷刑和任意拘留数千人，而且在许多情况下没有通知他们的家人。

美国检察官称，阿尔谢赫为了镇压政治异议，将某些囚犯送往阿德拉监狱的一个监区，在那里他们被关押在狭小的隔离牢房中并遭受酷刑。

据美国司法部新闻稿称，在为期两周的庭审中，三名受害者讲述了他们被吊在天花板管道上数小时甚至数天后遭到殴打的经历，以及使用一种能将他们腰部折叠起来的装置。其中一名受害者作证称，阿尔谢赫曾用脚踩踏该装置。

“被告明知自己的行为是错误的，”司法部检察官在本月提交的量刑备忘录中写道。“尽管如此，他还是下令并参与了对受害者的酷刑，因为他有权这样做，而且他认为自己永远不会受到惩罚。”

备忘录中包含几名受害者的陈述，其中一名受害者尼达尔·希卡尼说，他“仍然能听到其他人的尖叫声，他们乞求怜悯，反复说着‘放过我，放过我’。”

检方要求美国地区法官埃尔南·D·维拉判处阿尔谢赫至少80年监禁。阿尔谢赫的律师尼娜·马里诺和科林·凯特则请求判处五年监禁，并指出他已74岁高龄，且“存在严重的健康问题和认知障碍”。他们还表示，阿尔谢赫愿意被遣返回叙利亚，叙利亚新政府正致力于追究阿萨德时代安全官员的责任。

“无论此案在更广阔的历史进程中具有怎样的道德分量——无论世界、受害者或公众多么希望判决能够‘传递某种信息’——这种愿望都不能成为公正判决的基础，”马里诺和凯特在9月3日的备忘录中写道。

阿尔谢赫于2020年来到美国并申请入籍，但司法部称他谎报了自己的过往经历。联邦当局于2024年7月在洛杉矶国际机场将其逮捕。

陪审团还在 3 月份裁定他犯有向美国移民当局撒谎、以欺诈手段获得绿卡以及试图入籍成为美国公民的罪行。

“阿尔谢赫下令并直接参与的罪行令人发指，令人不安。我们向勇敢作证的受害者表示感谢，正是他们的证词促成了今天的判决，”联邦调查局刑事部门助理主任海斯·扬克周四在一份新闻稿中说。

2024 年 12 月，叛军发动闪电攻势推翻了阿萨德政权，结束了长达 14 年的内战，但该国仍继续遭受零星暴力事件的困扰。

2025年3月，与阿萨德结盟的武装团体在叙利亚海岸伏击了新政府的安全部队。随后，政府的反攻演变成教派报复性袭击，导致数百名阿拉维派平民遭到屠杀，而阿萨德本人也属于阿拉维派宗教少数群体。

周四，叙利亚阿勒颇市三人因与暴力事件有关而被判刑。一名亲阿萨德组织的成员被判处死刑，另一名被判处终身监禁，而一名参与报复性袭击的政府安全部队成员被判谋杀罪，并被判处20年监禁。