A man from Eqerbat village in the northern suburbs of Idlib governorate, named as Hussam Muhammad Abdullah al Sheikh, was arrested by Syrian regime forces in 2012. 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 20, 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.
