Alsheikh, who once headed the Damascus Central Prison under the regime of Bashar al‑Assad, was convicted by a federal jury in March 2024 on three counts of torture and one count of conspiracy to commit torture for his role in the abuse of detainees at Adra Prison between 2005 and 2008.
In addition to the torture convictions, the jury found Alsheikh guilty of lying to U.S. immigration officials, fraudulently obtaining a green card and attempting to naturalise as a U.S. citizen, offenses that carried separate penalties under federal law.
Prosecutors said Alsheikh ordered subordinates to inflict both physical and psychological pain on prisoners in order to suppress opposition to Assad’s government, and that he sometimes participated directly in the assaults himself.
The sentencing makes Alsheikh the highest‑ranking former member of the Assad regime to be tried and convicted in person outside Syria, a milestone the U.S. Justice Department highlighted as a demonstration of the reach of accountability for war‑time atrocities.
Alsheikh’s defense team had asked the court for a five‑year sentence, arguing that the convictions were excessive; they expressed disappointment after the March verdict and again after the 60‑year term was imposed.
Khaled Abdul Malek, a former detainee who testified about the torture he endured at Adra, issued a written statement saying the verdict proves that “even when justice is delayed, it will always come,” and called the case “the first step on the road toward accountability and justice for everyone whose hands have been stained with the blood of innocent people.”
The case unfolds against a backdrop of sweeping change in Syria: after more than a decade of civil war that killed hundreds of thousands and created a massive refugee crisis, rebels toppled the Assad family’s five‑decade rule in late 2024. The new president, Ahmed al‑Sharaa, a former al‑Qaeda commander, has been seeking to normalise relations with Western nations.
In a related development, a Syrian court last month sentenced Bashar al‑Assad, who now lives in Russia, to death in absentia on charges that include killings, torture and arbitrary arrests during the war, underscoring the broader push for legal reckoning with the conflict’s atrocities.