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DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities said Tuesday they had arrested a former officer in the feared security apparatus of ousted ruler Bashar Assad, the latest such announcement as the new government pursues ex-officials accused of atrocities.
The interior ministry announced in a statement that security forces in the coastal province of Latakia had arrested the “criminal brigadier-general Sultan Al-Tinawi,” saying he was a key officer in the air force intelligence, one of the Assad family’s most trusted security agencies.
The statement accused Tinawi of involvement in “committing war crimes against civilians, including a massacre” in the Damascus countryside in 2016.
It said he was responsible for “coordinating between the leadership of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia and a number of sectarian groups in Syria.”
Tinawi has been referred to the public prosecution for further investigation, the statement said.
A security source, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media, said that Tinawi held senior administrative positions in the air force intelligence when Jamil Hassan was head of the notorious agency.
Hassan has been sentenced in absentia in France for complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes, while the United States has accused him of “war crimes,” including overseeing barrel bomb attacks on Syrian people that killed thousands of civilians.
Tinawi had been “head of the information branch of the air force intelligence” before Assad’s ouster late last year, the security source told AFP, describing the branch as “one of the most powerful and secret security agencies in the country.”
Since taking power in December, Syria’s new authorities have announced a number of arrests of Assad-era security officials.
Assad fled to Moscow with only a handful of confidants, abandoning senior officials and security officers, some of whom have reportedly fled to neighboring countries or taken refuge in the coastal heartland of Assad’s Alawite minority community.