Most senior Assad regime official to stand trial: 60-year sentence for manager of 'torture prison' in Damascus
Samir Othman al-Sheikh, 74, was sentenced in the US to 60 years in prison for torturing political prisoners at Adra prison in Damascus and defrauding immigration authorities. He ran the prison from 2005 to 2008, watched torture from his office and sometimes participated. Three of his victims testified against him.
Samir Othman al-Sheikh, a retired brigadier general who served as director of Adra prison in Damascus from 2005 to 2008, was sentenced yesterday in the US to 60 years in prison. He was convicted of torturing political prisoners, conspiracy to commit torture, and defrauding immigration authorities after concealing his past and obtaining a green card. Three of his victims testified in court about the torture methods: being tied to ceiling pipes and suspended for hours and days, and a device called 'the flying carpet' that folded the body and caused fractures. One witness said al-Sheikh himself stepped on the device. Al-Sheikh was located after a Syrian citizen identified him in a photo on social media in 2022. He was arrested in July 2024 at Los Angeles airport en route to Beirut. The sentence was handed down four days after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. The judge described his actions as 'abhorrent, cruel to a degree that is hard to imagine'.