The new administration in Syria arrested the former military official in the regime of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Muhammad Kanjo Hassan, on Thursday, December 26. He is accused of committing crimes related to causing the executions of people, forced disappearance, and others, during the first years of the war in the country. According to what was confirmed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Hassan is the highest-ranking officer to be arrested since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on the eighth day of this month, after a lightning attack on army forces from the Syrian opposition factions, which led to their control of the country and the capital, Damascus, in less than two weeks.
Who is Muhammad Kanjo Hassan?
Muhammad Kanjo Hassan was born in the village of Khirbet al-Muazza in the countryside of Tartous, which is the place where he was arrested, according to the Syrian Observatory. He was born in 1960.
Hassan obtained a university degree in law, volunteered in the Syrian army, and rose through his ranks while working in various positions in the military judiciary, until he reached the position of military prosecutor in the field military court, according to information monitored about him by local Syrian reports.
Hassan, who held the rank of Major General, played a prominent role in liquidating opponents of the former regime during the first years of the war, when protests against the regime broke out in 2011 while he was in the position of Public Prosecutor in the Military Field Court, according to reports indicating that he tried thousands of people. Detainees, and his name was linked to the issuance of death sentences and long prison terms for many of them.
Muhammad Kanjo Hassan assumed the presidency of the Military Field Court in the year 2013, before becoming the head of the Military Judicial Administration at the end of the same year until the beginning of the year 2013, according to the opensanctions platform.
The United Kingdom included the name of Muhammad Kanjo Hassan on its sanctions list in December 2023, due to what it described as “his participation in the suppression of the civilian population in Syria through his previous position as Director of Military Justice.”
The Syrian Observatory described Muhammad Kanjo Hassan as “one of the thugs of Sednaya prison,” a prison whose name was linked to torture, executions, and arrests for indefinite periods of many detainees during the period of the previous regime.
According to the book “The Black List,” which was issued by the “Pro Justice” organization in 2019, in cooperation with the Middle East Institute in Washington, Kanjo Hassan agreed with the heads of the investigation branches in the security services to add certain phrases to the detainees’ statements and obtain their signatures on those confessions by force. Without realizing its content, which facilitates the process of issuing death sentences or long-term imprisonment, during trials that last only a few minutes.
In recent days, the Syrian Ministry of Interior has launched a campaign against what it describes as remnants of the former regime. According to media reports, Brigadier General Riyad Hussein, a military security official in Damascus during the Assad era, who is also accused of “committing crimes against the Syrian people,” was arrested.
Hayyan Maya was also arrested in Latakia, according to what the Syrian News Agency reported, describing him as “notorious and responsible for a number of major crimes against Syrians.”
ظهرت في الأصل على www.cnbcarabia.com