Bashar al-Assad's justice ministry says Amnesty International report finding 13,000 hanged in prison is 'false'

Bashar al-Assad's government has rejected allegations that as many as 13,000 people have been hanged in a prison near Damascus as part of a systematic campaign of torture and "extermination" against dissidents.

A report by Amnesty International said that Syrian authorities had “quietly and methodically organised the killing of thousands of people” in their custody Saydnaya Prison.

Boris Johnson said he was “sickened” by the reported executions, adding: “Assad responsible for so many deaths and has no future as leader.”

The justice ministry claimed the findings were “totally untrue” and part of a smear campaign, in a statement published by state-controlled media.

open image in gallery

It said “misleading and inciting” media outlets carried the Amnesty report to smear the Syrian government's reputation on the world stage, particularly after recent “military victories against terrorists groups”.

The ministry added that the allegations are “baseless” because executions in Syria follow due process and various stages of litigation.

The government refers to all rebels as “terrorists” and has denied extensive allegations of torture, executions, war crimes and crimes against humanity over the course of Syria's five year civil war.

Amnesty International said its research showed “murder, torture, enforced disappearance and extermination” carried out at Saydnaya Military Prison since 2011 as part of a “systematic” attack on dissidents in the civilian population.

“We therefore conclude that the Syrian authorities’ violations at Saydnaya amount to crimes against humanity [and a] calculated campaign of extrajudicial execution,” the group said.

“Amnesty International urgently calls for an independent and impartial investigation into crimes committed at Saydnaya.”

Its findings said mostly civilian victims were hanged after military trials that lasted just minutes in what detainees call “the slaughterhouse”.

The research, covering the period from 2011 to 2015, found that 20-50 people were hanged each week by military police at Saydnaya Prison, authorised by senior Syrian government officials, including Assad’s deputies.

Amnesty has recorded at least 35 different methods of torture in Syria since the late 1980s, practices that have increased since 2011, said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty's regional office in Beirut.

“These executions take place after a sham trial that lasts over a minute or two minutes, but they are authorised by the highest levels of authority”, including the grand mufti, a senior religious authority in Syria, and the defence minister, she added.

The group interviewed 31 former detainees, who gave chilling accounts telling how prisoners were told they were being transferred to civilian detention centres before being taken to another building and hanged.

Researchers also spoke to more than 50 other officials and experts, including former guards and judges.

It is the latest report detailing the Syrian regime’s alleged abuses against civilians accused of dissent, with research by numerous human rights organisations sparking concern at the United Nations.

Its Committee Against Torture said it had received “consistent, credible, documented and corroborated allegations about the existence of widespread and systematic violations” of the Convention against Torture against Syrian civilians by both the government and militias acting on its behalf.

The committee described the Syrian regime’s “habitual” use of torture and cruel and inhuman treatment against protesters, journalists, bloggers, defectors and rebels as a “deliberate part of state policy, to instil fear and to intimidate and terrorise the civilian population”, saying it had disregarded UN requests to cease the violations.

In a report last year, Amnesty found that more than 17,000 people had died of torture and ill-treatment in custody across Syria since 2011, an average of more than 300 a month.

And Saydnaya is not the only location for the alleged abuses. A former torture victim who has since moved to the UK as a refugee told The Independent of his ordeal.

Bashar Farahat, a 32-year-old doctor, was working in a hospital in Latakia province when he was arrested by officers from Syria’s notorious Military Intelligence Directorate in July 2012

“The minute you get in the car you disappear,” he told The Independent. “You don’t know anything about the world outside and the world outside doesn’t know anything about you.

“Once you are detained you become the property of the guards and the interrogators can do anything to you to get a confession.”

Mr Farahat believes he was reported to the authorities for supporting anti-government protests and treating those injured in the ensuing regime crackdown.

He was transferred from the headquarters of the Military Intelligence branch in Latakia, where he was repeatedly beaten and tortured in rounds of government interrogation, before being taken to the notorius Military Intelligence Branch 291 in Damascus.

Detainees have reported method of torture including contorting victims’ bodies to fit in a rubber tyre, hanging from the ceiling, burning them with boiling water and cigarettes, or pulling out their nails, as well as dire sanitary conditions and starvation.

“Some people were beaten to death during interrogation,” Mr Farahat said.

“The torture is to make people confess but it’s also a method of punishment so they will never, ever think of joining the revolution. This has been going on for 40 years in Syria.”