Disappeared Man May Have Been Secretly Executed

A man who disappeared two years ago is now believed to have been executed in secret, the Syrian Committee to Observe Syrian Society and Human Rights reported in a statement issued on June 23.



Yaser al-Saqqa, born in 1970, was a civil engineer from Aleppo who is believed to have been arrested by the security services about two years ago. He has not been heard of since. He was married with two children.



The committee reported that al-Saqqa’s wife went to get kerosene ration coupons recently when she was informed that her husband was registered as dead. After she told the official that her husband had been arrested by the security forces, he informed her that he had an official document stating that her husband had been executed. She was not given any additional details.



The human rights group speculated that al-Saqqa was executed for being an Islamist, noting that some of his family members had died while fighting with insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.



The London-based Syrian Committee for Human Rights speculated that al-Saqqa died under torture and that this was covered up with the story that he had been executed.