Local human rights advocates and activists said Thursday the Syrian regime is transferring detainees of Sednaya military prison near Damascus to unknown destination, days after U.S. accusations that a crematorium had been built at Sednaya that could be used to dispose of detainees' remains.
A well-informed source has also assured to Zaman al-Wasl that regime security had moved 1300 detainees last week from the notorious prison northwest of the capital to al-Draij base near the Lebanese border. Some of them will be deported to the central prisons of Homs and Deir Ezzor.
Hundreds of opposition detainees to join battlefields to defend the Syrian regime, activists said. They have no choice, they added.
Bashar al-Assad’s regime on Tuesday denied U.S. accusations, saying its "a new Hollywood story detached from reality" by alleging the crematorium had been built at Sednaya military prison.
Stuart Jones, acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, said on Monday that U.S. officials believe the crematorium could be used to dispose of bodies at a prison where they believe Assad's government authorized the hanging of thousands of inmates during Syria's six-year-old civil war.
Amnesty International reported in February that an average of 20 to 50 people were hanged each week at the Sednaya military prison. Between 5,000 and 13,000 people were executed at Sednaya in the four years since a popular uprising descended into war, it said.
Amnesty said the executions took place between 2011 and 2015, but were probably still being carried out and amounted to war crimes.
In a briefing on Monday, Jones showed aerial images of what he said was the crematorium at the Sednaya site.
-Detainees buried in courtyards-
In relevant development, an eye-witness told Zaman al-Wasl om Wednesday.that the Assad
Regime security used to bury opposition detainees in the courtyards.
The former female detainee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said I saw with my cell mates members of the notorious Palestine intelligence department burring tortured-to-death detainees in the courtyard of the headquarters south of Damascus.
''During the detention I never dared to speak up or to tell anybody over fears of reprisals and inevitable death,'' the woman said.
More than 465,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-regime protests
