Regime denies Syria jail hangings
Damascus rejects Amnesty’s claim
BEIRUT // Syria’s justice ministry yesterday rejected an Amnesty International report of mass hangings of as many as 13,000 people in a prison near Damascus, calling the allegations “totally untrue” and part of a smear campaign.
The ministry’s statement, published by Syria’s state-run news agency, came a day after Amnesty released its report Human Slaughterhouse: Mass Hanging and Extermination, based on a year of research and interviews with 31 former detainees of the Saydnaya prison near Damascus and more than 50 former guards, prison officials, judges and experts.
Amnesty’s report included witness accounts of various stages of the killings, down to the actual implementation and last-minute wishes of the men hanged, most of whom were civilians.
The justice ministry said “misleading and inciting” media outlets carried the Amnesty report with the intention to smear the Syrian government’s reputation on the world stage – particularly after recent “military victories against terrorist groups”. The government refers to all armed opposition as “terrorists”.
It also called the allegations baseless and said that executions in Syria follow due process and stages of litigations. It also questioned survivor testimony.
“Why didn’t the Syrian authorities execute them and why were they released if others were executed?” it said.
“The justice ministry denies and condemns in the strongest terms what was reported because it is not based on correct evidence but on personal emotions that aim to achieve wellknown political goals.”
The ministry also said the report refers to judges and lawyers among those executed. However, there is no such reference in the report – Amnesty only states that it interviewed former judges and lawyers and that human rights defenders were among those jailed in Saydnaya.
The city has become the main political prison in Syria since 2011, according to witnesses. Amnesty said Damascus did not respond to its request for comment before the report’s publication.