Torture and enforced disappearances of perceived opponents and political dissidents were defining characteristics of the Assad regime in Syria, under Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez al-Assad before him. From Saydnaya to the Mezzeh Military Airport, Branch 251, and Tadmor, torture was endemic in the former government’s prisons. In July 2024, U.S. authorities arrested former Brigadier General Samir Ousman Alsheikh at Los Angeles International Airport as he was attempting to leave the United States, for allegedly committing immigration fraud. The Department of Justice has since charged Alsheikh with three counts of torture and one count of conspiracy to commit torture for his actions at Adra Prison, which he headed from 2005 to 2008. In prosecuting Alsheikh for torture, the U. S. joins international efforts to hold Assad regime officials accountable for core international crimes.
According to the U.S. government, after Alsheikh moved to the United States in 2020, he obtained a green card and eventually applied for U.S. citizenship in 2023. Alsheikh was arrested at the Los Angeles Airport on July 10, 2024. An initial indictment was filed on August 8, 2024, charging Alsheikh with two counts of immigration fraud. Alsheikh allegedly submitted both his green card and citizenship applications with false information, concealing his role in torture, killings, and political persecution, as well as his involvement in Assad’s political party—the Syrian Ba’ath Party. The indictment alleges that political dissidents and other prisoners were severely physically mistreated during Alsheikh’s tenure as head of Adra Prison.
According to the U.S. government, Alsheikh became the head of Adra Prison in 2005 and remained in that post until 2008. During that time, Alsheikh allegedly oversaw a secret underground “Punishment Wing”, also known as Wing 13. Wing 13 included a below-ground section that contained small isolation cells and a room in which prisoners were interrogated and tortured. From in or about 2005 and continuing through in or about 2008, Alsheikh ordered prisoners to Wing 13 to be interrogated and tortured. Alsheikh is alleged to have monitored interrogations and torture from his office through surveillance cameras located in the Punishment Wing.
After his tenure at Adra, Alsheikh continued to work as an official in the Assad regime. During Alsheikh’s governorship of Deir Ez-Zour from around July 25, 2011, to January 2013, documentation groups reported a dramatic escalation of enforced disappearances, torture, indiscriminate shelling, and targeted attacks on peaceful protestors and civilians during that period.
On December 12, 2024 – just four days after the fall of the Assad regime – the Department of Justice filed a First Superseding Indictment, which added four torture-related charges against Alsheikh. Alsheikh has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. The trial is currently scheduled to begin on March 3, 2026.
CJA represents eight individuals who were held or were present in Adra Prison during Alsheikh’s tenure as head of the prison.