Syrian authorities arrest ex-intelligence officer tied to leaked video of massacre

Syrian authorities said on Friday they have arrested a former intelligence officer who appeared in a video leaked four years ago that purportedly showed him and his comrades fatally shooting dozens of people during the country's conflict. Amjad Yousef was arrested in the central province of Hama, where he had been hiding, the Interior Ministry said, and posted a photo of him in a striped prison uniform.

Since insurgents ousted former President Bashar Assad in December 2024, dozens of members of his security agencies that were blamed for atrocities during the conflict have been arrested. Assad fled to Russia.

The conflict, which began with anti-Government protests in March 2011 before turning into a civil war, has left half a million people dead and over 1 million wounded.  Yousef was one of several Syrian security agents who authorities said appeared in a video leaked in 2022, in which dozens of blindfolded, bound men were shot and thrown into a trench.  The second clip shows members of Syria's notorious Military Intelligence Branch 227 with a line of around 40 prisoners in an abandoned building in Tadamon near the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk.

For much of the war, the district was a front line between Government forces and opposition fighters. The prisoners were blindfolded, with their arms tied behind their backs. One after another, the Branch 227 gunmen stand them at the edge of a trench filled with old tyres, then push or kick the men in, shooting them as they fall.