A man from Tseel town in the northwestern suburbs of Daraa governorate, named as Muhammad Ahmad Fahd al Khalaf, a conscript who defected from the Syrian regime forces, was arrested by the regime in 2018, after handing himself over to the regime in order to agree on a settlement of his status. Since then, he has been classified as forcibly disappeared, with the Syrian regime denying his arrest and preventing anyone, even a lawyer, from visiting him. On October 5, 2020, SNHR received information confirming that he had died in 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.
SNHR has received confirmation that Syrian regime forces didn’t hand over his body 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, they continue to be classified as being among the forcibly disappeared.
