A man from Daraa city, named as Alaa Nabil al Omari, a conscript who defected from the Syrian regime’s Military Police, was arrested by Syrian regime forces in January 2019 when he turned to the regime to agree on a settlement of his status amongst a group of other former defectors. Since his arrest, he had been classified as forcibly disappeared, with the Syrian regime denying any knowledge of his arrest and preventing anyone, even a lawyer, from visiting him. On August 26, 2020, SNHR received information confirming that he had died in regime custody. Our data from numerous sources confirms that he was in good health at the time of his arrest, indicating that he probably died due to torture in Seydnaya Military Prison of the regime in Damascus suburbs governorate.
SNHR has received confirmation that Syrian regime forces failed to hand over his body over to his family; this is standard practice for the regime, with the bodies of the majority of detainees who die in its detention centers being disposed of through mass cremations. Since the whereabouts of these prisoners’ remains is unknown and they are not handed over to their relatives, these detainees continue to be classified as being among the forcibly disappeared persons.
