A former Syrian government official who headed the Damascus ​Central Prison under ousted President Bashar al-Assad and was convicted of torture by ‌a U.S. federal jury has been sentenced to 60 years ​in prison by a U.S. judge, federal prosecutors said.

Samir ⁠Ousman Alsheikh, 74, was charged in 2024 and convicted in March this year on three counts of torture and one count of conspiracy to commit torture for ‌his involvement in the abuse of prisoners at Adra Prison in Damascus.

Alsheikh was also convicted of lying to U.S. ‌immigration authorities about his commission of the crimes, fraudulently obtaining a ‌green ⁠card and attempting to naturalise as a U.S. citizen, the ⁠U.S. Department of Justice said.

Thursday’s (September 18) sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Hernan Vera in Los Angeles.

Prosecutors said Alsheikh ordered subordinates to inflict physical and mental pain on ​prisoners to deter opposition to Mr Assad’s ‌government and was sometimes personally involved in such incidents.

The U.S. Justice Department said Alsheikh, who held positions in the state security apparatus, was the highest-ranking former member of Mr Assad’s government to be tried and ‌convicted in person outside Syria so far.

Alsheikh’s legal team had ​asked for a five-year sentence. In March, they said they were “disappointed” by his conviction. Alsheikh, who headed Adra Prison from ⁠2005 to 2008, had previously pleaded not guilty.

Khaled Abdul Malek, a witness in the case who was detained and tortured at Adra prison, said ‌in a written statement shared with reporters that the sentencing showed that “even when justice is delayed, it will always come”.

“This trial is not the end, but the first step on the road toward accountability and justice for everyone whose hands have been stained with the blood of innocent people,” he said.

Syrian rebels put an end to more ‌than 50 years of rule by the Assad family in late 2024 following a ​lightning advance. Hundreds of thousands died in a civil war that lasted more than a decade, unleashed a global refugee ⁠crisis, and left cities across the country in ruins.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a ⁠former al-Qaeda commander, took over after Mr Assad’s ouster and has worked to improve ties with the West.

Last month, a Syrian ‌court sentenced Mr Assad, who resides in Russia, in absentia to death after convicting him of crimes including killings, torture, and arbitrary arrest ​during the country’s war.

Bashar al-Assad, who ruled Syria for more than two decades before being forced to flee amid a civil war in 2024 and ending the Assad-era after five decades, has been sentenced to death along with his brother Maher al-Assad, who commanded the notorious ‘fourth division’ of the military and was considered the regime’s top security official, cousin Atef Najib, and six others.

While Najib is currently being held in Syria and was present for trials and ruling, the other eight were sentenced in absentia, with the Assad brothers living under Russian asylum. While extradition of those sentenced in absentia and imposition of the sentences might be an arduous task for the present government under Ahmad al-Shaara, the former al-Qaeda operative with links to the Islamic State who led the quick movement against the Assad regime as Abu Muhammad al-Jolani in 2024 before taking over, the sentencing will act as a tool of transition for the country.

The judicial proceedings against the Assad brothers and their loyalists were the results of the efforts by the National Commission for Transitional Justice (NCTJ) set up by Mr. Shaara in May 2025 to investigate serious human right abuses during the “previous regime” and hold those responsible to account.

The Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus, presided over by Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan, began trial of the ousted leader and others in April this year and convicted him, his brother, cousin, and the six others of murder, torture, unlawful depravation of liberty, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The charges go back to the crackdown on the Daara uprising of 2011, where dissatisfaction over authoritarian regime spilled out onto the streets along with the Arab Spring sweeping West Asia. The protests in Syria were sparked by the detention and alleged torture of teenagers who drew anti-Assad graffiti on walls in Daraa. Demonstrations against this detention were met with a crackdown which ignited nationwide movements and later instability which opened the avenues for a civil war.

The court heard witnesses who were minors at the time recall torture including beating, electric shocks, suspension, and nail removal, with Najib, who was then the head of political security in Daraa, personally interrogating some. The court held the ousted leader Assad responsible for a “joint criminal project”, saying that as President throughout the period covered by the case, including the years-long civil war that followed shortly after the uprising, he had power over state institutions while the crackdown and other crimes took place. The former President was convicted specifically for intentional murder of multiple people, intentional killing of children under 15, intentional killing accompanied by torture and brutality, and incitement to intentional murder on multiple occasions.

With the two Assad brothers living in Russia, which has previously denied extradition request by the Shaara administration since it was a strong Syrian ally during the previous regime and helped it in the civil war against U.S. backed Kurdish group Syrian Democratic Forces and other militias, the court and the administration will find it hard to impose the sentence. However, the court has ordered arrest warrants against the “fugitives”, directing authorities to take necessary measures for their international prosecution. Following this, Syria’s Deputy Justice Minister Mustafa al-Qassem on Wednesday announced the formation of a committee to seek the extradition of those convicted, saying that the panel would coordinate with Interpol to secure their handover.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International expressed concerns over the judicial proceedings, stressing shortly after the verdict was issued that trials and death sentences in absentia are incompatible with international standards of fair-trial guarantees. The sentencing of the Assad brothers and others followed the recent precedent set by Bangladesh, whose ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was similarly sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity by the countries International Crimes Tribunal in November last year.

Reacting to the proceedings in Syria, Amnesty noted that prosecuting those responsible for grave violations of human rights was key to achieve justice, but said that trials in absentia should be abolished if the Sharaa government wanted to “truly turn the page on the horrors of the past”. However, Syria’s Justice Ministry pushed back against the organisation’s criticism, saying its statement “does not accurately reflect the nature of the judicial procedures followed in these cases or the safeguards guaranteed to litigants under Syrian law”.

A Syrian court sentenced ousted leader Bashar al-Assad to death ​on Tuesday (August 11, 2026) after a trial in absentia, convicting ‌him of crimes including killings, torture, and ​arbitrary arrest during the ⁠country’s nearly 14-year war.

It was the first conviction against Assad, who was ousted in a rebel ‌offensive in December 2024 that ended decades of his family’s iron-fisted ‌rule over Syria, and the brutal ‌war ⁠that killed hundreds of thousands of ⁠Syrians.

Assad fled the capital Damascus as rebel fighters approached nearly two years ago, and is currently ​in Moscow.

In a ‌trial of former government officials on Tuesday, a judge handed down a death sentence to Assad over the crimes of “premeditated ‌and intentional murder of more ​than one person and of children, torture, arbitrary arrest and crimes against humanity”.

Atef ⁠Najib, a security official under Assad, was also sentenced to death.

Assad, who was ‌born in 1965, became president in 2000 after his father Hafez died. He maintained the family’s rule and the dominance of their Alawite sect in the Sunni Muslim-majority country and Syria’s status as an ‌Iranian ally hostile to Israel and the U.S.

Shaped ​in its early years by the Iraq war and crisis in Lebanon, ⁠Assad’s rule was defined by civil war, ⁠which spiralled out of the 2011 Arab Spring, when Syrians demanding democracy took ‌to the streets, to be met with deadly force.

Syria on Wednesday (March 18, 2026) launched a plan supported by Washington to rid ​the West Asian country of legacy chemical weapons that were ⁠used against its people by forces under ousted leader Bashar al-Assad.

For decades, Assad ran a large-scale program for chemical weapons, the use of which killed and injured thousands during Syria’s long-running ‌civil war. Despite Damascus’ signing onto the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2013 and declaring a 1,300-ton stockpile, prohibited use continued and the ‌size of the program remains unclear.

An international taskforce backed by the ‌United ⁠States, Germany, Britain, Canada and France, among others, will track down all ⁠remaining elements of the program and destroy them under the supervision of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Olabi, said in an ​interview.

As many as 100 sites ‌in Syria need to be inspected to determine what toxic munitions remain and how they should be destroyed, OPCW experts have said. It will require a time-consuming and costly operation to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass ‌destruction in a region fraught with conflict and political turmoil. The ​expanding U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and broader regional security concerns will make the timing of the mission uncertain, but all the ⁠more necessary to prevent future use, officials said.

Government vows full access

Assad was overthrown in December 2024, and the new government under Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has ‌vowed to turn a page and eradicate banned chemical weapons and give inspectors full access.

The move shows that Syria has shifted from a country that was once concealing chemical weapons use to one that is “leading the resolve” to do away with them, Olabi said.

Several international investigations concluded that the nerve agent sarin, as well as chlorine and sulfur mustard gas, was used by the ‌Assad regime, but never revealed the full extent of the clandestine program.

“We don’t know what’s ​remaining. It was a secret program,” Olabi said. “The job is on Syria to basically look for these things and then declare them.”

A ⁠diplomatic source, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, ⁠said the 100 sites could be anything from military bases to laboratories or offices.

“It will probably take many months if not years ‌to get it done, and of course the current situation in the Middle East doesn’t help the process to move forward to the actual destruction ​of any remnants of Assad‘s chemical weapons program,” the source said.

Syria expects to finalise security and military agreements with Israel this year, an official said on Thursday (September 18, 2025), in what would be a breakthrough less than a year after Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.

With the United States pushing for a settlement between the two neighbours, Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani arrived in Washington to discuss talks with Israel and the possible lifting of remaining sanctions on Syria, said the Foreign Ministry official.

Syria and Israel remain technically at war, but opened direct negotiations after Assad was toppled by an Islamist-led coalition in December last year.

“There is progress in the talks with Israel,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to brief the media, adding that several agreements were expected to be signed “by the end of the year”.

“Primarily, these would be security and military agreements,” he told AFP, adding there would be a focus on “an agreement to halt (Israeli) military operations inside Syria”.