First Assad regime official tried in US courtroom
The sentencing of Samir Ousman al-Sheikh by US District Judge Hernan D Vera on Thursday delivers the most significant punishment handed to an official of ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s regime by a foreign court and to a defendant present in person. Al-Sheikh, 74, headed Syria’s Adra prison on the outskirts of Damascus between 2005 and 2008, where he oversaw an underground “punishment wing” known as “Wing 13” in which prisoners and regime opponents were interrogated and tortured as he watched through surveillance cameras.
“The conduct was heinous, unimaginably cruel and almost unspeakably violent and brutal,” Vera said before imposing the sentence.
A federal jury convicted al-Sheikh last March of having tortured prisoners and then lying about it on US immigration forms. The verdict followed a nine-day trial in which victims and witnesses described abuse at Adra. Guards folded prisoners into car tires and restrained and beat them. Some, they said, were cuffed by their wrists to pipes on the ceiling, beaten with cables, and left suspended for extended periods of time.
Others testified that they were placed on a device known as a “magic carpet” or “flying carpet” that consisted of two large wooden panels with hinges in the middle, onto which guards strapped prisoners, forcing the panels together to cause excruciating pain. One victim told the court that al-Sheikh himself stomped on the device. Another testified he was subjected to it as punishment for writing a letter of support to a political prisoner and also forced to wear a red jumpsuit assigned to prisoners designated for execution, leading him to believe he was going to die.
In their sentencing memo, prosecutors wrote: “[Al-Sheikh] chose to serve the ruthless, repressive Assad regime in Syria throughout his professional life, including for four years as the warden of Syria’s largest prison.” The memo continued: “[He] knew that what he was doing was wrong. 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.”
Assistant attorney general A Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s criminal division said in a statement: “Human rights violators who come to the United States will receive no safe harbor here. We will find them, and they will be prosecuted and punished for their heinous crimes.”
Al-Sheikh also served as governor of Syria’s Deir Ez-Zour province in 2011, during violent regime crackdowns against protesters. He moved to the United States in 2020, obtained a green card and applied for US citizenship. He was arrested in July 2024 at Los Angeles International Airport on immigration fraud charges, and prosecutors later added four torture-related counts.
Al-Sheikh is the first al-Assad regime official to go to trial in the US and the highest-ranking regime official to be tried in person anywhere in the world. Assad was ousted by a lightning rebel offensive in December 2024 that toppled the regime in 11 days.
Since then, Syria’s new government has held a number of in absentia trials for former regime officials in connection with crimes committed during the country’s years-long civil war, which killed about half a million people and displaced half the country’s prewar population of 23 million. In August, a court sentenced Assad and his brother Maher to death for crimes against humanity and war crimes, but the two men have been in Moscow since the regime’s collapse.
Other factions in Syria’s civil war have also been accused of abusing detainees, including insurgent groups and the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
Ahead of sentencing, several victims submitted written and video testimonies describing trauma that has endured for two decades. “I still hear the screams of others begging for mercy,” said Nidal Shikhani. “Even though 20 years have passed, I still live in the prison of my memory,” said Sultan Abdul Malek, who described suffering from sudden panic attacks and constant anxiety.
His brother, Khaled Abdul Malek, who was taken to “Wing 13” twice during his four years at Adra, spoke of the physical and psychological scars he was left with, including chronic back pain and mobility problems. “My son Battal asks if he could ride my back and with a heart wrung with pain, I am forced to tell him I [am] no longer strong enough to carry him,” he said.
Several witnesses also submitted testimony on al-Sheikh’s behalf, speaking about his age and frailty as they asked for leniency. More than 50 people sent letters of support to the court describing him as “a person of integrity, compassion, and generosity to his family and community,” his attorneys wrote.
Prosecutors had asked for a minimum sentence of 80 years; al-Sheikh’s attorneys called for a five-year sentence, citing his poor health and noting he was willing to be deported to Syria.
“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,” the defense team wrote in a memo to the court.
Al-Sheikh is one of only five people to be prosecuted under the extraterritorial Torture Act, which allows the US government to charge individuals physically present in the US for acts of torture committed abroad.
Ela Matthews, an attorney at the Center for Justice and Accountability who represented several victims, said the case carries implications beyond the courtroom. “This case sends a message both to the new government of Syria and to other victims that justice is possible,” she said. “The transitional justice process that is happening in Syria needs to continue to evolve and bring individuals like this to account, but in the US this sends a message that the rule of law is still functioning and that these types of cases are possible.”