Damascus: Syria 24 people have been sentenced to death after pleading guilty to terrorism charges for burning last year’s devastating wildfires, killing three people and burning thousands of hectares (acres) of forests, the Justice Ministry said on Thursday. .
Public executions of a large group of people are rare in war-torn Syria, where a decades-long conflict has left half the country’s population, including half the country’s five million refugees, dead and displaced by hundreds.
Wildfires broke out in several Middle Eastern countries in October 2020, amid a heat wave unusual for that time of year that hit Syria particularly hard. Three people died in the fire, which also burned extensive areas of forests, mostly in the government-controlled areas of Latakia and the central province of Homs.
President Bashar AssadKaradaha’s hometown in Latakia province was engulfed in fire, which caused heavy damage to a building used as storage for the state-owned tobacco company, part of which collapsed. Soon after the fire was brought under control, Assad made a rare visit to the area.
A statement issued by the Justice Ministry on Thursday said those killed a day earlier were “criminals who perpetrated terrorist attacks that caused damage to state infrastructure and public and private property through the use of flammable materials.” Happened and done damage.” It said 11 others have been sentenced to life imprisonment in the same case.
Nine others, including five juveniles, received prison sentences. The Justice Ministry said prison sentences for juveniles ranged between 10 and 12 years.
The statement did not give further details about the circumstances of the executions or how they happened. For civilians, the death penalty is usually given in Syria. Syrian law allows the death penalty for crimes including terrorism, espionage, treason, arson and desertion of the army.
“Yesterday’s execution of 24 people demonstrates the Syrian government’s disregard for international law, especially the right to life,” said researcher Diana Seman on Syria. Amnesty International.
She said that death sentences are often passed through secret trials or during court proceedings that lack basic safeguards such as the right to have a lawyer, and are routinely accompanied by confessions of torture or other ill-treatment and coercion. extracted under.
In 2017, a report by Amnesty International stated that between September 2011 and December 2015, at the height of the Syrian civil war, 13,000 people were executed in secret mass executions at the Saidnaya prison in Syria. It said the alleged executions were authorized at the highest levels of the Syrian government.
The report said that 20 to 50 people were hanged each week, sometimes twice a week, in the Saidnaya prison in what the organization called “a calculated campaign of extrajudicial execution”. UN human rights experts have also reported mass killings of government-held detainees in government and temporary detention centers that often go out of sight.
Those executed on Wednesday were among dozens of people detained in late 2020 who confessed they began planning the fires in August last year, a Justice Ministry statement said. . The ministry said they started fires in September that damaged 280 towns and villages and damaged 370 homes.
It said a total of 24,000 hectares (59,300 acres) of forest and plantations were burned in the fire.
Public executions of a large group of people are rare in war-torn Syria, where a decades-long conflict has left half the country’s population, including half the country’s five million refugees, dead and displaced by hundreds.
Wildfires broke out in several Middle Eastern countries in October 2020, amid a heat wave unusual for that time of year that hit Syria particularly hard. Three people died in the fire, which also burned extensive areas of forests, mostly in the government-controlled areas of Latakia and the central province of Homs.
President Bashar AssadKaradaha’s hometown in Latakia province was engulfed in fire, which caused heavy damage to a building used as storage for the state-owned tobacco company, part of which collapsed. Soon after the fire was brought under control, Assad made a rare visit to the area.
A statement issued by the Justice Ministry on Thursday said those killed a day earlier were “criminals who perpetrated terrorist attacks that caused damage to state infrastructure and public and private property through the use of flammable materials.” Happened and done damage.” It said 11 others have been sentenced to life imprisonment in the same case.
Nine others, including five juveniles, received prison sentences. The Justice Ministry said prison sentences for juveniles ranged between 10 and 12 years.
The statement did not give further details about the circumstances of the executions or how they happened. For civilians, the death penalty is usually given in Syria. Syrian law allows the death penalty for crimes including terrorism, espionage, treason, arson and desertion of the army.
“Yesterday’s execution of 24 people demonstrates the Syrian government’s disregard for international law, especially the right to life,” said researcher Diana Seman on Syria. Amnesty International.
She said that death sentences are often passed through secret trials or during court proceedings that lack basic safeguards such as the right to have a lawyer, and are routinely accompanied by confessions of torture or other ill-treatment and coercion. extracted under.
In 2017, a report by Amnesty International stated that between September 2011 and December 2015, at the height of the Syrian civil war, 13,000 people were executed in secret mass executions at the Saidnaya prison in Syria. It said the alleged executions were authorized at the highest levels of the Syrian government.
The report said that 20 to 50 people were hanged each week, sometimes twice a week, in the Saidnaya prison in what the organization called “a calculated campaign of extrajudicial execution”. UN human rights experts have also reported mass killings of government-held detainees in government and temporary detention centers that often go out of sight.
Those executed on Wednesday were among dozens of people detained in late 2020 who confessed they began planning the fires in August last year, a Justice Ministry statement said. . The ministry said they started fires in September that damaged 280 towns and villages and damaged 370 homes.
It said a total of 24,000 hectares (59,300 acres) of forest and plantations were burned in the fire.
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