US indictment accuses two Syrian officials of torture at notorious prison

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Updated 10 December 2024
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US indictment accuses two Syrian officials of torture at notorious prison

This picture shows empty sells at Sednaya prison in Damascus on December 9, 2024. (AFP)
  • Indictment is believed to be the US government’s first against what officials say were networks of Assad intelligence services and military branches

WASHINGTON: US prosecutors are accusing two senior Syrian officials of overseeing a notorious prison that tortured peaceful protesters and other political prisoners, including a 26-year-old American woman who was later believed to have been executed.

The indictment was unsealed Monday, two days after a shock militant offensive overthrew Syrian President Bashar Assad. The US, UN and others accuse him of widespread human rights abuses in a 13-year battle to crush opposition forces seeking his removal from power.

The war, which began as a largely nonviolent popular uprising in 2011, has killed half a million people.

The indictment, filed Nov. 18 in federal court in Chicago, is believed to be the US government’s first against what officials say were networks of Assad intelligence services and military branches and other allied groups that detained, tortured and killed thousands of perceived enemies.

It names Jamil Hassan, director of the Syrian air force’s intelligence branch, who prosecutors say oversaw a prison and torture center at the Mezzeh air force base in the capital, Damascus, and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, who prosecutors say ran the prison.

The indictment charges the two with conspiring to commit cruel and inhuman treatment of civilian detainees during the course of the Syrian civil war. Detainees at the prison were whipped, kicked, electrocuted, burned and subjected to other mental and physical abuse, including being housed in cells alongside corpses of dead detainees, prosecutors allege.

Victims included Syrians, Americans and dual citizens, the indictment said. The US-based Syrian Emergency Task Force has long pushed federal prosecutors for action on the cases, including that of 26-year-old American aid worker Layla Shweikani.

The group presented witnesses who testified of Shweikani’s 2016 torture at the prison. Syrian rights groups believe she was later executed at the Saydnaya military prison in the Damascus suburbs.

“Now it is our time to capture these criminals and bring them to the United States for trial,” the Syrian Emergency Task Force said in a statement Monday. The group’s leader, Mouaz Moustafa, said his relatives were among those tortured at the prison.

Federal prosecutors said they had issued arrest warrants for the two officials, who remain at large.

Prospects of bringing them to trial were unclear. Assad’s toppling by the militants over the weekend has scattered his government and left citizens searching prison torture centers around the country for survivors and evidence.


5 US immigrants deported to Eswatini in Africa are being held in solitary confinement

5 US immigrants deported to Eswatini in Africa are being held in solitary confinement
Updated 5 sec ago
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5 US immigrants deported to Eswatini in Africa are being held in solitary confinement

5 US immigrants deported to Eswatini in Africa are being held in solitary confinement
  • The men , who the US says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the US illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos
  • Eswatini is the latest nation to accept third-country deportees from the US. The others are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, and South Sudan

CAPE TOWN, South Africa: Five immigrants deported by the United States to the small southern African nation of Eswatini under the Trump administration’s third-country program are in prison, where they will be held in solitary confinement for an undetermined time, a government spokesperson said.

Thabile Mdluli, the spokesperson, declined to identify the correctional facility or facilities where the five men are, citing security concerns. She said Eswatini planned to ultimately repatriate the five to their home countries with the help of a United Nations agency.

In cell phone messages to The Associated Press on Thursday, Mdluli said it wasn’t clear how long that would take.

The men, who the US says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the US illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos. Their convictions included murder and child rape, the US Department of Homeland Security said, describing them as “uniquely barbaric.”

Their deportations were announced by Homeland Security on Tuesday and mark the continuation of President Donald Trump’s plan to send deportees to third countries they have no ties with after it was stalled by a legal challenge in the United States.

Here’s what we know and don’t know about the deportations:

A new country for deportees

Eswatini, a country of 1.2 million people bordering South Africa, is the latest nation to accept third-country deportees from the US. The Trump administration has sent hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama, and deported eight men earlier this month to South Sudan, also an African country.

The deportees to South Sudan are citizens of Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan. They were held for weeks in a converted shipping container at a US military base in the nearby country of Djibouti until a Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for them to be finally sent to South Sudan. The US also described them as violent criminals.

Eswatini’s government confirmed on Wednesday that the latest five deportees were in its custody after landing on a deportation plane from the US.

Local media reported they are being held at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, outside the country’s administrative capital of Mbabane, which includes Eswatini’s top maximum-security prison.

The men’s fate is unclear

The Eswatini government said the men are “in transit” and will eventually be sent to their home countries. The US and Eswatini governments would work with the UN migration agency to do that, it said.

The UN agency — the International Organization for Migration or IOM — said it was not involved in the operation and has not been approached to assist in the matter but would be willing to help “in line with its humanitarian mandate.”

Eswatini’s statement that the men would be sent home was in contrast to US claims they were sent to Eswatini because their home countries refused to take them back.

It’s unclear how sending the men to Eswatini would make it easier for them to be deported home. There was also no timeframe for that as it depends on several factors, including engagements with the IOM, Mdluli said.

“We are not yet in a position to determine the timelines for the repatriation,” she wrote.

Four of the five countries where the men are from have historically resisted taking back some of their citizens deported from the US, which has been a reoccurring problem for Homeland Security. Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the administration was happy the men were “off of American soil” when she announced their deportations.

Another secretive deal

There have been no details on why Eswatini agreed to take the men and Mdluli, the government spokesperson, said “the terms of the agreement between the US and Eswatini remain classified.”

Eswatini has said it was the result of months of negotiations between the two governments. South Sudan has also given no details of its agreement with the US to take deportees and has declined to say where the eight men sent there are being held.

Some analysts say African nations might be willing to take deportees from the US in return for more favorable relations with the Trump administration, which has cut foreign aid to poor countries and threatened them with trade tariffs.

The Trump administration has also said it’s seeking more deportation deals with other countries.

Rights groups have questioned the countries the US has chosen to deal with, as South Sudan and Eswatini have both been criticized for having repressive governments.

Eswatini is Africa’s only absolute monarchy, meaning the king has power over government and rules by decree. Political parties are banned and pro-democracy protests have been quelled violently in the past.

Several rights groups have criticized Eswatini since pro-democracy protests erupted there in 2021, citing deadly crackdowns by security forces and abusive conditions in prisons, including at the Matsapha Correctional Complex, where pro-democracy activists are held.


UN chief calls Cyprus peace talks ‘constructive’

UN chief calls Cyprus peace talks ‘constructive’
Updated 18 July 2025
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UN chief calls Cyprus peace talks ‘constructive’

UN chief calls Cyprus peace talks ‘constructive’
  • Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when a Turkish invasion followed a coup in Nicosia backed by Greece’s then-military junta

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday that meetings between Cyprus’s rival leaders at the organization’s New York headquarters were “constructive,” even as questions remained about crossing points on the divided island.

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar have been holding talks and had reached a breakthrough on forming a committee on youth and three other topics, Guterres said.

The opening of four crossing points, and the exploitation of solar energy in the buffer zone between the two sides of the island remained unresolved, he said.

“It is critical to implement these initiatives, all of them, as soon as possible, and for the benefit of all Cypriots,” Guterres said.

The meeting follows one in Geneva in March, which marked the first meaningful progress in years.

At that gathering, both sides agreed on a set of confidence-building measures, including opening more crossing points across the divide, cooperating on solar energy, and removing land mines.

Guterres said there were specific technical issues still to be resolved on the issues of crossing points, but did not give details.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when a Turkish invasion followed a coup in Nicosia backed by Greece’s then-military junta. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, declared in 1983, is recognized only by Ankara.

The internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus, a member of the European Union, controls the island’s majority Greek Cypriot south.

The last major round of peace talks collapsed in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, in July 2017.

“I think we are building, step-by-step, confidence and creating conditions to do concrete things to benefit the Cypriot people,” Guterres said in remarks to reporters.

 


US designates group that claimed Kashmir attack as terrorists

US designates group that claimed Kashmir attack as terrorists
Updated 17 July 2025
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US designates group that claimed Kashmir attack as terrorists

US designates group that claimed Kashmir attack as terrorists
  • Gunmen in April shot dead 26 people, almost all Hindus, in Pahalgam, a tourist hub in the Indian-administered side of divided Kashmir

WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday designated as terrorists a shadowy group that claimed an April attack in Kashmir, which triggered Indian strikes on Pakistani territory.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio described The Resistance Front as a “front and proxy” of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist group based in Pakistan.

The terrorist designation “demonstrates the Trump administration’s commitment to protecting our national security interests, countering terrorism, and enforcing President (Donald) Trump’s call for justice for the Pahalgam attack,” Rubio said in a statement.

Gunmen in April shot dead 26 people, almost all Hindus, in Pahalgam, a tourist hub in the Indian-administered side of divided Kashmir.

Little had been previously known about The Resistance Front, which claimed responsibility for the attack.

India designates TRF as a terrorist organization and the India-based Observer Research Foundation calls it “a smokescreen and an offshoot of LeT.”

Pakistan has denied responsibility for the attack.


US House passes landmark crypto bills in win for Trump

US House passes landmark crypto bills in win for Trump
Updated 17 July 2025
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US House passes landmark crypto bills in win for Trump

US House passes landmark crypto bills in win for Trump
  • It will now head to the Senate, where Republicans hold a thin majority

WASHINGTON: The US House passed landmark cryptocurrency bills on Thursday, delivering on the Trump administration’s embrace of the once-controversial industry.

US lawmakers easily passed the CLARITY Act, which establishes a clearer regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets.

The bill is intended to clarify rules governing the industry and divides regulatory authority between the Securities and Exchange Commission  and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission .

It will now head to the Senate, where Republicans hold a thin majority.

House legislators also easily passed the GENIUS Act, which codifies the use of stablecoins — cryptocurrencies pegged to safe assets like the dollar. That bill was due to immediately go to Trump for his signature to become law.

The GENIUS Act was passed by the Senate last month and sets rules such as requiring issuers to have reserves of assets equal in value to that of their outstanding cryptocurrency.

The raft of legislation comes after years of suspicion against the crypto industry amid the belief that the sector, born out of the success of bitcoin, should be kept on a tight leash and away from mainstream investors.

But after crypto investors poured millions of dollars into his presidential campaign last year, Trump reversed his own doubts about the industry, even launching a Trump meme coin and other ventures as he prepared for his return to the White House.

Trump has, among other moves, appointed crypto advocate Paul Atkins to head the Securities and Exchange Commission .

He has also established a federal “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” aimed at auditing the government’s bitcoin holdings, which were mainly accumulated by law enforcement from judicial seizures.

The Republican-led House is also considering a bill it calls the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act that aims to block the issuance of a central bank digital currency  — a digital dollar issued by the US Federal Reserve.

Republicans argue that a CBDC could enable the federal government to monitor, track, and potentially control the financial transactions of private citizens, undermining privacy and civil liberties.

It would require a not-easily-won passage in the Senate before going to Trump for his signature.

An aborted effort to set the anti-CBDC bill aside caused a furor among a small group of Republicans and delayed the passage of the two other bills before a solution was found.


‘A trap’ — Asylum seekers arrested after attending US courts

‘A trap’ — Asylum seekers arrested after attending US courts
Updated 17 July 2025
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‘A trap’ — Asylum seekers arrested after attending US courts

‘A trap’ — Asylum seekers arrested after attending US courts

NEW YORK: In gloomy corridors outside a Manhattan courtroom, masked agents target and arrest migrants attending mandatory hearings — part of US President Donald Trump’s escalating immigration crackdown.

Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to deport many migrants, has encouraged authorities to be more aggressive as he seeks to hit his widely-reported target of one million deportations annually.

Since Trump’s return to the White House, Homeland Security agents have adopted the tactic of waiting outside immigration courts nationwide and arresting migrants as they leave at the end of asylum hearings.

Missing an immigration court hearing is a crime in some cases and can itself make migrants liable to be deported, leaving many with little choice but to attend and face arrest.

Armed agents with shields from different federal agencies loitered outside the court hearings in a tower block in central New York, holding paperwork with photographs of migrants to be targeted, an AFP correspondent saw this week.

The agents arrested almost a dozen migrants from different countries in just a few hours on the 12th floor of the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building.

Brad Lander, a city official who was briefly detained last month by ICE  agents as he attempted to accompany a migrant targeted for removal, called the hearings “a trap.”

“It has the trappings of a judicial hearing, but it’s just a trap to have made them come in the first place,” he said Wednesday outside the building.

Lander recounted several asylum seekers being arrested by immigration officers including Carlos, a Paraguayan man who Lander said had an application pending for asylum under the Convention Against Torture — as well as a future court date.

“The judge carefully instructed him on how to prepare to bring his case to provide additional information about his interactions with the Paraguayan police and make his case under the global convention against torture for why he is entitled to asylum,” Lander said.

After his hearing, agents “without any identifying information or badges or warrants grabbed Carlos, and then quickly moved him toward the back stairwell,” he said.

Lander, a Democrat, claimed the agents were threatening and that they pushed to the ground Carlos’s sister who had accompanied him to the hearing.

The White House said recently that “the brave men and women of ICE are under siege by deranged Democrats — but undeterred in their mission.”

“Every day, these heroes put their own lives on the line to get the worst of the worst... off our streets and out of our neighborhoods.”

Back at the building in lower Manhattan, Lander said that “anyone who comes down here to observe could see... the rule of law is being eroded.”