Khaberni - Syria and France have asked Lebanon to arrest the former director of Syrian Air Force Intelligence, Jamil Hassan, who is accused of committing war crimes and being the architect of the collective punishment campaign launched by the regime of deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad following the 2011 demonstrations. He is believed to be in Lebanese territory, according to the American newspaper Wall Street Journal.
According to a report published by the newspaper yesterday, Thursday, a French official confirmed that both Paris and Damascus have asked Beirut to arrest Hassan, who is convicted in absentia in France for his role in committing crimes against humanity, and is wanted under an arrest warrant in Germany, as well as being sought by the American FBI for his role in the kidnapping and torture of American citizens.
The newspaper quoted a senior Lebanese judicial official saying that the Lebanese government does not have confirmed information about Hassan's whereabouts, who fled Syria after the fall of the Assad regime on December 8, 2024.
Hassan's hiding place remains unknown, but many current and former Syrian and Western officials suspect his presence in Lebanon, where former intelligence officials of the regime are rebuilding a support network.
Engineering the Repression
The Air Force Intelligence unit has long been described during the Assad family's rule as "the most brutal and secretive" among the four intelligence agencies at the time (State Security, Political Security, Military Security, and Air Force Intelligence). Hassan commanded the unit starting in 2009.
According to a security document reported by the newspaper, Hassan and other security service commanders met in central Damascus to plan a misleading and violent repression campaign two years after the start of the Syrian revolution in 2011.
They developed a plan in a document they signed with their initials, which a former Syrian security official presented to the Wall Street Journal and which another official confirmed.
According to the document and other documents, Hassan preferred to use brute and bloody force against the demonstrators and opponents. His message to Assad was to "do as your father did in Hama," referring to the bloody massacre committed by the late President Hafez al-Assad in Hama which resulted in the death of more than 40,000 people in 1982.
Security regime leaders wrote in the document that any place where protests get out of control must be encircled.
The document added that snipers will be sent to shoot at the crowds with orders to hide the source of the shots and not to kill more than 20 people at a time to avoid a clear link to the state.
The document stated, "No leniency will be shown towards any attack on the highest symbol, whatever the cost, as silence will only encourage our opponents."
Documents collected by the Committee on International Affairs and Justice show that Hassan ordered security forces to shoot peaceful protesters.
Torturing Civilians
Hassan also played a key role in the brutal campaign that targeted the town of Darayya in 2012, where the former regime's army sent tanks accompanied by Air Force Intelligence personnel who worked for two years to arrest and torture civilians.
The Air Force Intelligence had a specific military court in Mezzeh, Damascus, which issued death sentences or sent the convicted to the infamous Saydnaya prison.
The site of the Air Force contained a mass grave of its own, according to the Syrian Center for Justice and Accountability in Washington, which based its findings on satellite images and a visit to the site after the regime's fall.
The U.S. Department of Justice accuses Hassan of orchestrating a torture campaign that included whipping detainees with hoses, pulling out the nails of victims' toes, beating their hands and feet to the point they could not stand, crushing their teeth, and burning them with cigarettes and acids, including American citizens and dual nationals.
