Mohamad Kanjo Hassan signed the death sentences of “thousands of people in summary trials,” explained a co-founder of the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya prison
The new authorities of Syria A senior official of the ousted regime in Tartus was arrested on Thursday, in the west of the country, during an operation marked by violent clashes that left at least 14 dead on Wednesday.
General Mohamed Kanjo Hassan, head of military justice under Bashar al Assad and “responsible for numerous death sentences” in Saydnaya prison near Damascus, was arrested in the town of Khirbet al Ma'zah along with 20 members of his personal guard, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).
Mohamed Kanjo Hassan He signed the death sentence of “thousands of people in summary trials”, he told the news agency AFP Diab Seria, co-founder of the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons from Saydnaya Prison, estimated that the fortune accumulated at around $150 million was at the expense of the families of the detainees, who paid for information about their loved ones that was never provided.
The arrest of Mohamad Kanjo Hassan, “one of the criminals of the Assad regime"This represents an important step towards achieving justice and prosecuting criminals," the Syrian opposition coalition, which brings together the main political parties in exile, celebrated in X.
Since the fall of the Assad regime on December 8, Mohamed Kanjo Hassan He is the highest-ranking official whose arrest has been announced.
Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia after an Islamist-led offensive wrested control of city after city from him until Damascus fell, ending five decades of clan rule and sparking celebrations in Syria and abroad. The offensive took Assad and his inner circle by surprise, and he fled the country with only a handful of confidants. Many others were left behind, including his brother Maher al-Assad, who a Syrian military source said fled to Iraq before heading to Russia.
Other regime collaborators are believed to have fled to their homelands in Alawite regions that were once strongholds of the Assad clan.
According to the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison, Kanjo Hassan headed Syria's field military tribunal from 2011 to 2014, the first three years of the war that began with Assad's crackdown on democratic protests inspired by the Arab Spring. He was later promoted to head of military justice throughout the country.
The Saydnaya complex, the scene of Extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, personified the atrocities committed against Assad's opponents. The fate of tens of thousands of prisoners and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of his rule.
Hate or revenge
During the offensive that precipitated Assad's ouster, rebels threw open the gates of prisons and detention centres across the country, letting out thousands of people. In central Damascus, relatives of some of the missing have hung posters of their loved ones in the hope that, with Assad gone, they will one day be able to find out what happened to them.
World powers and international organizations have called for that accountability mechanisms be urgently established.
Since the judiciary has not yet been reorganized since the overthrow of Assad, It is unclear how those arrested on suspicion of crimes linked to the former authorities will be tried.
Some members of the Alawite community fear that without Assad, they risk attacks from groups seeking revenge or motivated by sectarian hatred.
Angry protests erupted in several parts of Syria on Wednesday, including Assad's hometown of Qardaha, over a video showing an attack on an Alawite shrine that circulated on the Internet.
The OSDH said one protester was killed and five others wounded “after security forces… opened fire to disperse” a crowd in the central city of Homs.
We want peace
HTS-appointed transitional authorities said in a statement that the attack on the shrine took place earlier this month, while the Interior Ministry said it was carried out by “unknown groups” and that the republishing of the video had served to “fuel hostilities.”
This Thursday, The Ministry of Information has banned the publication or distribution of “any sectarian content or information whose aim is to sow division and discrimination.”
At one of Wednesday's protests over the video, large crowds chanted slogans such as "Alawites, Sunnis, we want peace."
Assad has long portrayed himself as the protector of Syria's predominantly Sunni minority groups, though detractors say he played on sectarian divisions to stay in power.
(With information from AFP)
Source: INFOBAE
In the 21st century, in the midst of two wars, the long-suffering Syrian people are being liberated from a sick autocratic regime and the UN has not yet resolved to act decisively to steer the incipient, possible government towards a model DEMOCRACY.