Former Assad officer sentenced to 60 years in US for torture
Former Syrian official sentenced to 60 years in US prison for torturing prisoners under al-Assad's regime.
A former Syrian military official convicted of torturing prisoners during the rule of former President Bashar al-Assad has been sentenced to 60 years in a United States prison.
A federal judge in Los Angeles sentenced Samir Ousman Alsheikh on Thursday. A jury found him guilty in March of one count of conspiracy to commit torture and three counts of torture while in charge of Syria‘s infamous Adra Prison from roughly 2005 to 2008.
“The conduct was heinous, unimaginably cruel, and almost unspeakably violent and brutal,” the judge said before announcing the sentence.
The prosecutors asked US District Judge Hernan D Vera for a minimum sentence of 80 years. Alsheikh’s lawyers, Nina Marino and Collin Cate, called for a five-year sentence, noting that he is 74 years old and has “significant medical and cognitive conditions”. They also said he was willing to be deported to Syria, where a new government has sought to hold Assad-era security officials accountable.