He stood for a long time before a charred wall that had once been part of his home. He ran his hand over the stones, searching for a trace of a color he remembered, for a mark confirming that this place had once been his house. But it was not only time that had changed. Streets had been renamed, houses had new occupants, and ownership — once an unquestioned right — had become a matter of dispute.

Before his displacement, Abu Harb had carefully kept his purchase contracts and ownership documents. He bought his first house in 2010 after years of work and migration abroad, paying for it in cash. The second house was the family home he inherited from his father, and its papers remained preserved even after they were forced to flee.

Upon his return, however, he discovered that the first house had been renovated and occupied by strangers after it had been “sold” during his absence through an intermediary who later died, breaking the legal chain of ownership. As for the family home, it had burned during the years of siege, then was restored and sold multiple times using forged contracts.

“We lost the house three times,” Abu Harb says. “The first time when we left under the bombing. The second when it burned. And the third when we found it in someone else’s hands. It’s like losing memory itself… not just the walls.”

Abdulhadi’s story reveals a broader crisis faced by thousands of Syrians who returned after the regime’s fall, only to discover that the road back to their homes was obstructed not only by rubble, but by a complex web of laws, missing records, and sales and forgery schemes that exploited their forced absence during the war years.

In this investigative report, drawing on personal interviews, analysis of property ownership documents and complaints, and a review of laws and government decisions, we examine how the loss of documentation during the war has prevented thousands of Syrians from reclaiming their homes today. Many are unable to prove ownership of properties that, in many cases, were transferred to strangers during their absence, with ownership altered or homes seized because they stood vacant.

The suffering is compounded in informal housing areas in Damascus and its suburbs, where most sales, purchases, and transfers took place outside official institutions through customary contracts not registered in real estate courts, due to the absence of formal title deeds known as the “green tabou.” Similar complications arise in areas subject to urban redevelopment plans imposed under complex regulatory laws.

Through interviews with families from various areas of Damascus and its countryside, the investigation shows how proving ownership of one’s home, once among the most basic of rights, has become one of the most complex legal and humanitarian battles in Syria today, particularly in neighborhoods subjected to systematic destruction during the war.

Anwar Majni, a judge specializing in real estate and property rights, explains that the problem lies not only in lost documentation but also in the legal framework itself: “There are around 200 laws in Syria related to property issues, some of which contradict one another. This heavy legacy makes finding comprehensive solutions extremely difficult. We need a unified property law.”

Return Without Papers: The Battle for Ownership After the Fall of the Regime

As waves of return began to reach Damascus, its suburbs, and other parts of the country, it became clear that the loss of housing was not linked solely to widespread destruction, but also to many returnees’ inability to legally prove ownership of their homes.

The loss of official documents, the burning of real estate records, the absence of accurate inheritance registries, and the continued enforcement of laws enacted at the height of the war under the Assad regime have all turned the process of proving ownership into a long, costly judicial path, often with no outcome.

Legal expert Malek Al-Awda explains: “The core problem today lies in the loss of property documentation. Thousands of original documents were damaged, burned, stolen, or forged. In the absence of written evidence, the owner has no option but to turn to the courts, a slow and exhausting process.”

In November 2025, the Ministry of Justice issued a circular to heads of judicial courts across the governorates, outlining mechanisms for restoring the records of certain notary offices that had been damaged or lost. The circular stipulated that any request for restoration or re-registration would only be accepted upon submission of a certified “true copy” of the missing document. If such a copy was unavailable, the request would be rejected and the applicant referred to the courts to pursue their claim.

For many returnees, however, these conditions appeared nearly impossible to meet, particularly in areas where courts had been destroyed or their records completely burned.

How Are Properties Classified When They Become Subject to Dispute?

In cities such as Daraya, several residents interviewed by the investigative team confirmed that they no longer possess any documents proving ownership of their apartments or homes, after the records of the Sharia Court and the notary public office were burned during the siege of the city between 2013 and 2016.

With official records gone, proving ownership has shifted from an administrative procedure to an open-ended judicial dispute.

Flora Diop, Assistant Director of Legislation and Real Estate Registration at the Directorate of Real Estate Interests in Damascus, believes that Abdulhadi Abu Harb’s case is solvable as soon as a copy of the title deed is retrieved from the land registry. The forged contracts mentioned were most likely concluded outside official records and therefore carry no legal value. Based on the available information, she argues that Abu Harb may not even require court intervention, as his case appears straightforward and clear.

Homes Sold in the Shadows: Forgery and the Exploitation of Absence

The loss of property did not stem solely from burned documents or missing records; it was compounded by fraudulent sales and forgery carried out during years of forced absence. In Abdulhadi Abu Harb’s case, the house was not merely “seized”; it was also transferred through sales contracts brokered by intermediaries who later died, breaking the legal chain of proof. The family home, meanwhile, was sold multiple times using forged records.

Lawyer and legal expert Hind Al-Saleh explains that this legal vacuum opened the door to organized networks: “Networks of brokers and intermediaries spread, exploiting the absence of property owners. They re-registered homes through illegal means or transferred ownership using forged powers of attorney and substitution contracts.”

In April 2023, an investigative report by the Syrian Investigative Journalism Unit, SIRAJ, in collaboration with the British newspaper The Guardian, revealed the existence of more than 20 security-linked networks specializing in property ownership forgery in several Syrian cities under the control of the now-fallen Assad regime.

The joint investigation noted that the absence of centralized judicial records means there is no comprehensive data on the scale of property theft in Syria or the seizure of homes belonging to Syrians living abroad.

A source at the Syrian Ministry of Justice told the investigative team that a specialized court will be established in 2026 to investigate forgery operations that took place under the former regime, to restore properties to their original owners. The source added that thousands of properties had their ownership falsified and were sold through illegal transactions.

Engineer Mazhar Sharbaji, a unionist and former mayor of Daraya, warns of the dangers of compounded forgery in certain areas: “In some neighborhoods, you may find someone who owns two or three shares in a property, yet sells the entire property by falsifying the number of shares. These cases make proving one’s rights later nearly impossible.”

Since the outbreak of the 2011 uprising, Bashar al-Assad’s regime issued 35 laws permitting the confiscation, expropriation, and seizure of property. These laws related to counterterrorism measures, urban planning, regulation of informal settlements, debt collection, enforcement of compulsory military service, communal agricultural lands, and property registries. They primarily affected the properties of displaced persons and alleged political opponents.

In such cases, returnees find themselves facing an unequal battle: their original documents are missing, official records are either damaged or contradictory, while the opposing party holds “formal” contracts that were processed during years of chaos.

Laws That Undermine Property Rights: Wartime Legislation as a Tool of Silent Dispossession

Syria’s property crisis did not emerge from chaos alone. It was shaped by a legislative framework crafted during the war years and used to expand the seizure of assets belonging to opponents and displaced persons, facilitating the confiscation of their properties or their sale at auctions of which the owners were often unaware.

Since early 2011, the government of the now-fallen Assad regime issued a series of laws and decrees related to property rights. These included measures authorizing the seizure of movable and immovable assets belonging to political opponents or individuals accused of supporting “terrorism”, charges widely used to criminalize opponents, activists, and entire communities.

Counterterrorism Law No. 19 of 2012 stipulates in Article 12 that, “In all crimes provided for in this law, the court shall, upon conviction, order the confiscation of movable and immovable assets, their proceeds, and items used or intended for use in committing the crime.”

For legal experts we spoke to, this provision was not merely a criminal penalty, but a gateway to broad asset seizures within a wider political context. It affected thousands of families who left the country or were internally displaced, particularly as Article 11 of the same law authorized the “competent Public Prosecutor or their delegate,” even before any final judicial ruling, to “order the freezing of movable and immovable assets of anyone who commits one of the crimes related to financing terrorist acts or any of the crimes stipulated in this law,” based solely on their assessment that “sufficient evidence exists,” under the pretext of safeguarding the rights of the state and victims.

This expansion of confiscation outside the judicial process was reinforced by Legislative Decree No. 63 of 2012, which granted judicial police authorities, during investigations into crimes against state security or those covered by Law No. 19 of July 2, 2012, the power to submit a written request to the Minister of Finance to take precautionary measures against the movable and immovable assets of the accused.

For example, lists published by the Ministry of Finance revealed 40,000 precautionary asset seizure cases affecting Syrians in 2017 and 30,000 in 2016, most of them justified by what the regime described as “involvement in terrorist activities.”

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, constitutes one of the foremost international frameworks protecting individual property rights, particularly under Articles 8, 17, and 25. These protections are further reinforced by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.

At the national level, the Syrian Constitution protects the right to private property under Articles 15, 16, and 17. These protections are further supported by the Syrian Civil Code and Urban Planning and Development Law No. 23 of 2015.

The restitution of property for refugees and internally displaced persons is a standalone right under the Pinheiro Principles, adopted in 2005 by the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.

These principles affirm the right to recover housing and property that was arbitrarily lost, or, when restitution is factually impossible, to receive compensation determined by an independent and impartial court.

In this context, Sharbaji warns that the property crisis cannot be treated as a single, homogeneous file. Each area carries its own story and distinct complexities — particularly regions that experienced large-scale displacement followed by partial returns, or shifts in controlling authorities. These conditions created an ideal environment for record forgery and the exploitation of legal loopholes.

Urban Planning Pretexts… Erasing a Neighborhood from the Map

Alongside laws targeting the properties of opponents and displaced persons, urban planning legislation played an additional role in reshaping ownership on the ground, especially in areas surrounding Damascus. There, complex redevelopment projects were imposed, and entire neighborhoods were classified as “informal zones” subject to demolition or restructuring.

Legal experts point in particular to Law No. 10 of 2018, which authorized the establishment of redevelopment zones and the conversion of property ownership into shares within a regulatory master plan, subject to a limited deadline for proving ownership. The law previously raised widespread fears of dispossessing displaced persons and refugees of their property, particularly amid a lack of trust in procedures under the former regime.

Law No. 23 of 2015 (Urban Planning and Development Law) is also significant. It regulates land preparation for construction in accordance with regulatory plans, whether through subdivision or reorganization. It stipulates that land included within a redevelopment zone becomes jointly owned by rights holders in proportion to the assessed value of their original properties.

On the ground, however, in areas such as Daraya and its surroundings, residents report a sense of injustice in compensation and alternative housing processes. Procedures move extremely slowly, while administrative conditions and requirements accumulate atop an already complex reality marked by damaged ownership records and missing official documentation.

In interviews with eight families, many emphasized that these problems did not originate in the current phase. Their roots trace back to the Assad era, when property and compensation files were managed through a bureaucratic and security-driven system that produced widespread legal chaos. Yet the continued reliance on these mechanisms, without substantive reforms to date, makes the issue appear,  in the eyes of those affected, as a present failure, even though it is in fact a heavy legacy inherited by the current government, which has not yet succeeded in dismantling it.

Al-Khaleej Neighborhood… Destruction Is Not the Only Problem

At Daraya’s entrance from the Damascus side, adjacent to Mezzeh Military Airport, the Al-Khaleej neighborhood, an informal residential area stretching toward Mezzeh, was among the areas most completely destroyed. Today, it appears as little more than a trace: homes erased, rubble cleared, the landmarks of an entire neighborhood wiped from the map.

The question of compensation remains unresolved: How will homeowners be compensated for houses destroyed during military operations? And what authority will confirm that a house once stood here if documents are lost, records damaged, and the neighborhood itself erased?

Abu Rashed, a Daraya resident who recently returned from ten years of exile in Turkey, says he recognized the location of his home by a large tree that once stood in front of it and remains to this day. Another man identified his house by the rare-colored tiles and marble he had installed when he built it. Both, like many others, returned first to confirm that the place still existed, before beginning to ask about the paperwork.

Mohammad Abu Malek, a resident of Daraya, specifically the Al-Khaleej neighborhood, was displaced with his family to Idlib in 2016, before undertaking a sea journey to Europe in search of safety, work, and education for his children. After the fall of the regime, he felt for the first time that returning might become possible.

“For years, I carried the idea of the house in my head because, for us, it holds all the memories connected to Syria,” he says. “I thought, finally, we’ll go back and start over. I returned to Daraya imagining that the hardest thing I would face was the destruction in Al-Khaleej… but I discovered that destruction is not the biggest problem.”

Abu Malek recounts his first impressions: the neighborhood had become rubble, to the point that Mezzeh Airport was now visible from Daraya because Al-Khaleej had been “leveled to the ground.” Yet the deeper shock was not the rubble itself, but what that rubble meant legally. “A house isn’t just walls… a house is a document. If you don’t have a paper, you effectively have nothing.”

Abu Malek’s house was completely demolished due to its proximity to Mezzeh Military Airport. It no longer exists, reduced to a mass of debris. Today, he possesses no document proving his ownership.

“Without an official proof-of-ownership document, I can’t do anything,” he says. “I can’t rebuild it, I can’t sell it, I can’t even submit a formal compensation request. It’s as if the house has become a trace, and I’m just someone trying to prove that I was once its owner.”

A Legal Trap

If urban redevelopment zones generate crisis by converting ownership into shares and slow compensation mechanisms, informal housing areas such as Al-Khaleej produce a different kind of crisis: ownership that is socially recognized but legally fragile.

Sharbaji explains that property ownership in Syria is not uniform. Some properties are formally registered (tabou), with existing documentation; others are recorded through notary offices and are supposed to have official real estate extracts. But a significant proportion of homes were sold through external or customary contracts that were never formally registered, making them difficult to prove before the state.

In these areas, where transactions occurred outside official institutions,  many residents do not possess the “green tabou,” nor do they have contracts registered in real estate courts. With the outbreak of war, this loophole turned into fertile ground for disputes, forgery, and the monopolization of rights.

Interrogation Before Return… Property Access Through Security Channels

During the war years, the battle to reclaim homes in Syria was not only about documents and records, but, in many cases, about navigating the security apparatus of the now-collapsed Assad regime.

In 2023, Abu Ahmad, a resident of the Tishreen neighborhood in Damascus, decided to return to live in his home despite the extensive destruction and the absence of basic services in the area. The high cost of living and the difficulty of paying rent in the capital pushed him to consider returning. But the path back to his house was not open.

Abu Ahmad learned from neighbors and the neighborhood mukhtar that he could not enter the area or even open the door to his home without first obtaining approval from Air Force Intelligence in Harasta. He underwent a security interrogation that included background checks on him and his three sons, and questions about any potential ties to the opposition or issues related to military service. After hours of questioning, he was allowed to return, in exchange for a bribe paid to security officers.

But another shock awaited him inside the house. “I found a family living in my home,” Abu Ahmad says. “They told me they had bought it from a real estate broker for a small sum.”

Abu Ahmad had purchased the three-room house, measuring around 60 square meters, in 2010 for 250,000 Syrian pounds, approximately $5,000 at the time. Today, he possesses no sale contract or official document proving his ownership. The house is located in an informal, unregulated area not subject to a formal land registry.

He is now trying to reclaim his home by proving that he is the rightful owner. But the path is complicated: the original seller died in 2013, there is no documented chain of contracts, no title deed, and no official registry to consult.

In such cases, Mazhar Sharbaji explains, courts may rely on alternative forms of evidence, such as electricity bills or water meters registered in the individual’s name, since obtaining a utility meter theoretically requires municipal inspection and confirmation of actual residence. Yet even these forms of proof do not guarantee a swift or decisive outcome.

How Do You Prove Ownership When You Have No Proof?

When written evidence — a title deed, a registered sale contract, or a prior court ruling, is absent, the judiciary becomes the only available path. Legal expert Malek Al-Awda explains that judges in such cases rely on what is known as “non-written evidence,” including interrogations, judicial investigations, witness testimony, and sworn statements.

“These procedures take a long time,” Al-Awda says, “and they do not always guarantee a quick result, which temporarily deprives the owner of the ability to use the property,  whether for housing, sale, or renovation.”

In practice, many returnees find themselves in a state of “legal limbo”: unable to reclaim the home, unable to dispose of it, and unable to obtain compensation. With prolonged litigation, claiming one’s home shifts from being an obvious right to becoming a psychological and financial burden.

What Is the ‘Green Tabou’?

The “green tabou” is considered the strongest proof of real estate ownership in Syria. It is a copy of the official property registry record and is issued only once. If lost, the owner must request a replacement for a lost document.

The deed includes the property number, its size and location, the owner’s name and share, and all encumbrances on the property, such as seizures, lawsuits, or mortgages.

However, in vast areas where land registry offices themselves were destroyed, this document, meant to serve as a guarantee, has become a missing paper that cannot easily be restored.

Inside the Palace of Justice in Damascus, where the investigative team visited notary offices and court departments, the scene was telling: long queues, worn-out files, and citizens moving from office to office in search of legal advice or a procedural thread that might restore part of what they lost.

Most of those we met were recent returnees after the regime’s fall, confronting a recurring reality: missing or damaged ownership records, homes occupied by strangers, and legal frameworks still operating under exceptional wartime logic. It is a reality that reflects a deep gap between what people expect from justice and what the inherited legal structure currently allows.

Millions Affected by Destruction

The property crisis in Syria extends far beyond individual stories; it spans the entire nation.

According to Abdallah Al-Dardari, Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Syria had approximately 5.5 million homes before the war. Of these, 328,000 were completely destroyed, meaning that one in every three homes suffered either total destruction or partial damage.

As a result, around 5.7 million people today require direct housing support — either because they are homeless, living in uninhabitable dwellings, or at risk of losing their property due to missing documentation and complex ownership disputes.

Mu’tasim Al-Sioufi, a director at the organization The Day After, argues that the crisis goes beyond physical destruction to a deeply complicated legal structure: “Around 60 percent of housing in Syria consists of informal settlements. Many of these homes were connected to water and electricity in the 1980s due to corruption. Then came the war and displacement, which further complicated matters, in addition to longstanding issues such as usufruct rights and expropriations dating back to the 1960s.”

According to Al-Sioufi, what emerged after the regime’s fall is only “the tip of the iceberg,” while the real crisis runs much deeper and is far more intertwined.

A table by “Syrian Response Coordinators” showing estimates for Syria’s reconstruction costs as a result of the destruction caused by the Assad regime.

The Legacy of Systematic Looting… The Fourth Division and Beyond

In February 2025, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria issued a report titled: “Pillage and Plunder: The Unlawful Seizure and Destruction of Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons’ Property in Syria.”

Based on satellite imagery, direct testimonies, and visual documentation, the report documented systematic looting and destruction of civilian homes over a period of 13 years. It concluded that such looting — often linked to military and security formations, including the Fourth Division — represents one of the major obstacles to the return of millions of refugees and displaced persons following the regime’s fall.

According to the report, the areas most severely affected were those that changed hands between 2016 and 2020, where properties were treated as “spoils” or instruments of collective punishment.

A Home Waiting for a Paper… Return Without Guarantees

In response to this landscape, the Ministry of Justice speaks of measures to address the problem. A ministry source — who requested anonymity — stated that the Public Prosecutor’s Office and relevant judicial authorities are pursuing cases of unlawful property seizure, particularly those belonging to forcibly displaced persons, “in accordance with applicable laws and through procedures that ensure justice and transparency.”

According to the source, specialized courts and judicial departments have been designated to handle cases of forged property ownership and lost documents, with the aim of accelerating rulings and unifying judicial interpretations, while also simplifying procedures and reducing processing times.

However, legal experts and rights advocates argue that these steps, despite their importance, remain insufficient without more courageous decisions.

Al-Sioufi proposes expanding the means of proving ownership beyond traditional tools, such as incorporating broader community testimonies or establishing a technical reference body to develop clear, region-specific standards.

Malek Al-Awda stresses the need for transitional solutions, such as granting temporary ownership records valid for five or ten years to safeguard people’s rights until registry issues are resolved. “Without alternative and bold legal formulas,” he says, “thousands of families will remain locked out of their homes — even after they have returned.”

For Abdulhadi Abu Harb, Mohammad Abu Malek, Abu Ahmad, and many others, return remains incomplete. The house exists — or once existed — but the paper is missing. In its absence, memory turns into dispute, belonging into a file, and a right into a long judicial process.

In post-regime Syria, returning home is no longer a simple act. It is a legal, social, and psychological battle — one that risks reproducing displacement in a silent form, this time in the name of the law.

This investigation was produced with support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and a version of it was published on the Daraj website.

• Research and reporting: Mawaddah Kallas
• Creative coordination and visual solutions: Radwan Awad

The post Residential Property Claims in Syria: A Growing Challenge for Returnees appeared first on SIRAJ.

In August 2015, the freighters were hit with U.S. sanctions that targeted resources used by the regime to wage violence against civilians in Syria’s civil war.

Then, in 2023, the three ships were sold to an obscure offshore company.

Incorporated in January 2019, the Seychelles-based AlHouda Holding has no functioning website, and until now, no information about the individuals directly involved in the firm has been disclosed to the public.

But the Syrian General Authority for Maritime Transport sold two of the ships — the Finikia and the Souria — to the company in April 2023  for the nominal price of just $1 apiece, according to sales contracts obtained by SIRAJ.

AlHouda acquired the third ship, the Laodicea, around the same time but OCCRP was unable to verify the sales price.

Sold for a Dollar

Sales contracts obtained by SIRAJ show the ships were sold by the Syrian government for just $1 apiece.

Archived versions of the UAE Levant Fleet’s website show that as recently as January of this year, the site presented itself as the public-facing portal of the British Levant Fleet Ltd, where Kayali was director between August 2020 and April 2023 and the company’s sole shareholder in 2020. He resigned a week after he was sanctioned by the British government, which alleged that he is a “business magnate with links to the captagon industry” who has been “tied to multiple captagon seizures, including in Europe.”

While Kayali is no longer involved in the U.K. company, records show he is a director of a Panamanian company also called Levant Fleet Ltd S.A. whose executives have the same names as those of Levant Fleet in London, suggesting the companies are related.

The U.K.-based Levant Fleet has served as the safety manager for the Laodicea and the Souria since 2023, according to the shipping database Equasis, and as a crew manager for the Souria and the Finikia in 2024, according to partial employment contracts obtained by SIRAJ.

And a crew list for the Souria dated January 5, 2024, features the name Orient Fleet at the top of the document. Kayali is a 99-percent shareholder of a Syrian company established in 2022 named Orient Fleet Maritime LLC. 

The other shareholder of Kayali’s Orient Fleet Maritime bears the same name, Moaead Hani Walio, as the secretary of the U.K.-based Levant Fleet. Kayali and Walio have both served as officers in the U.K. and Panamanian Levant Fleets, while a third man, Ahmad AlKhanji, is also a director in both companies.

Walio did not respond to requests for comment. AlKhanji told OCCRP he parted ways with Levant Fleet, without specifying the jurisdiction, in 2023 due to “a dispute with the company personnel that continues to this day.” He said the dispute prevented him from answering further questions about the company, and did not respond to follow-up questions about his links to Kayali and Levant Fleet in the U.K., the UAE, and Panama in time for publication.

Orient Fleet Maritime and the UAE- and U.K.-based Levant Fleet companies did not respond to requests for comment. But after sending the queries, OCCRP received a message from an unknown Syrian number, whose profile image featured the name — Neptunus — of another Syrian company belonging to Kayali that was hit with Western sanctions. The author said they were responding to questions about Levant Fleet and promised to provide “all necessary documents and materials” but did not do so in time for publication.

In September 2025, Finikia’s ownership changed again: It was transferred to Bayaze Shipping Ltd, a company incorporated  in the Marshall Islands on 13 June, according to the International Maritime Organization and company records.

False Flags

When the Finikia was spotted this January by a granary at the Avlita cargo terminal in Sevastopol, the Ukrainian Black Sea port that Russia seized in February 2014, only two weeks had passed since it had been hit with EU sanctions.

The ship was now sailing under its third name since 2009 – Monte Bianco – and a new flag, Gambia, also its third since then. The AIS transponder used to broadcast its location had been switched off, but the vessel remained visible by satellite, according to an image provided to OCCRP by satellite intelligence company Vantor. 

This type of regular rotation of names and flags of registration, plus the disabling of AIS transponders, has been a feature of all three of the Syrian vessels since they were sold by Assad’s regime in 2023. All three have also misrepresented their countries of registration with so-called “false flags.”

For instance, in December 2023, the freighters registered with the Kingdom of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, in southern Africa. But just a month later, the landlocked nation rescinded the registrations, citing a “direct violation” of its policies, Eswatini maritime authorities told OCCRP.

All three of the Syrian freighters continued flying the Eswatini flag in 2024, primarily traveling between Russia and Syria, even though the African nation told the International Maritime Organization in a letter in August of last year that it had “not yet given permission to any company or agency to register ship vessels sailing in high seas in its flag.”

Michelle Bockmann, a senior maritime intelligence analyst with Windward, a maritime consultancy, said “flag-hopping” is typical behavior for sanctions-hit vessels that face limited options for countries willing to accept their registrations.

Lacking valid insurance and other safety certificates, such ships pose “significant threats” to maritime safety, security, and the environment, she wrote in a submission this year to the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission. “These ships are essentially lawless and stateless.”

Asked about false-flagging, the International Maritime Organization said that it is a problematic practice that prevents authorities from exercising effective control over vessels at sea, but that “[t]here is currently no binding international framework to regulate the process of ship registration.”

Despite their efforts at obfuscation, satellite images and dedicated ship tracking publications helped reporters track some of the freighters’ recent movements.

For instance, the Souria, which is now called San Damian and still flies a false Eswatini flag, departed the Kavkaz port in southern Russia in November 2024 and anchored a little over a week later at the grain terminal in Egypt’s Alexandria port. Satellite imagery analyzed by OCCRP indicates the ship was moored in Syria’s Latakia port on June 30.

After its January stop in Sevastopol, the Finikia was seen sailing in the crystalline blue waters off Cyprus in June with an East Timor flag that the International Maritime Organization website describes as “false.” The East Timor ship registry told OCCRP in July that the jurisdiction does not maintain an international ship registry and it has no knowledge of the vessel.

Işık from the Bosphorus Observer consultancy spotted the ship — with yet another new name, Bayaze D — crossing the Bosphorus a few weeks later. According to the ship-tracking website VesselFinder it was heading for Russia’s Kavkaz port. Later that month, on July 17, it was again seen near Istanbul. 

According to Vladyslav Vlasiuk, sanctions commissioner for Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, the Finikia made a call at the occupied port of Komysh-Burun as recently as August 2025. (Ship-tracking data reviewed by OCCRP shows the vessel in the area at the time).^. 

The Laodicea, meanwhile, was seen in the vicinity of Simferopol in Russian-occupied Crimea last June, and was spotted several months later sailing near Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey before making a stop in Lebanon. In November 2024, it switched off its AIS transponder until April 2025.

During this “dark” period, SIRAJ reporters spotted the vessel anchored in Syria’s Latakia port in mid-January, just over five weeks after the fall of Assad’s regime.

 

The ship’s new name was hidden behind a tarp that someone had hung on the back of the vessel. But the new moniker — Monte Rosa — remained visible on a lifeboat on deck. A gust of wind lifted the tarp just long enough for reporters to see “Rosa” painted on the hull.

Ahmed Haj Bakri (SIRAJ), Rana Sabbagh, and reporters from Daraj contributed reporting.

The post Ships Accused of Stealing Ukrainian Grain Linked to Assad Regime Front appeared first on SIRAJ.

In particular, the intelligence agency was looking into Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism (SIRAJ), according to documents discovered at GID headquarters after rebel groups took power on December 8.

SIRAJ is a collective of journalists who have been publishing stories exposing corruption and human rights abuses under the Assad regime since 2019. But the GID documents show that the agency had concocted a sinister theory about them.

“The mentioned platform is merely a front for espionage activities, gathering information and connecting (with) sources to collect intelligence about Syria’s military and security institutions at various levels,” one document reads.

The allegation is untrue, but it reflects the paranoid view of the Assad regime toward independent media — an attitude that often turned violent.

Assad’s security forces abducted hundreds of journalists throughout the war, and Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) said 23 remained in prison the day the regime fell. Another seven journalists “were victims of enforced disappearances — abducted to unknown locations,” the advocacy group said in a statement.

Assad’s regime and its affiliates have killed at least 181 media professionals since 2011, according to RSF.

That was the year protests erupted as part of the “Arab Spring,” when people took to the streets demanding democratic reform across a region dominated by autocratic governments. In Syria, Assad’s forces waged a bloody crackdown, sparking a civil war that has claimed the lives of more than 500,000 people.

But the killing had been going on long before that, and the true number of activists, journalists and other perceived opponents of the regime may never be known.

“Over more than five decades, the Assad dictatorship (became) a machine for making the bodies of their victims disappear in mass graves,” Thibaut Bruttin, RSF’s director general, told OCCRP.

More details of the regime’s crimes have come to light since Assad flew to Moscow the night before rebel forces swept into the capital, Damascus. With Assad gone, his allies in many sections of government fled their offices — including the GID.

The rebel coalition led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has allowed journalists and researchers to sift through mountains of government paperwork, some of which provide a record of the regime’s crimes.

“It was ok to take pictures, but it was prohibited to take the documents out of the office,” said Feras Dalatey, a Syrian investigative journalist who visited the GID headquarters on December 20 and uncovered the file on SIRAJ.

Credit: Ali Ibrahim/SIRAJ

The General Intelligence Directorate in Damascus, Syria.

 

Spying Approval

The dossier Dalatey discovered shows that the GID appeared to interpret normal journalistic practices carried out by SIRAJ reporters — interviewing people, examining documents — as undercover intelligence work.

“This information is then shared with a network of international Western organizations linked to U.S. and European intelligence agencies,” according to a memo to the GID’s director general.

The claim is odd since SIRAJ publishes its findings on its own website and with media partners, so the information reporters obtain is available to anyone.

The GID memo names “major international organizations collaborating with the so-called dubious platform ‘SIRAJ’ and exchanging information under the pretext of knowledge sharing.”

Included in the list is the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN), an association of non-profit organizations.

“The document misrepresents GIJN’s work and that of investigative journalists” said Emilia Diaz-Struck, the organization’s executive director.

The GID memo focuses on a story published by SIRAJ and OCCRP in September revealing loopholes in the sanctions system, which allowed the Syrian army to obtain Swedish-made trucks.

“Following the publication of these findings, several Swedish politicians and parliamentarians have demanded that the Council of the European Union in Brussels review its policy on sanctions against Syria,” said the GID memo.

On October 17, the GID director general authorized an operation to spy on SIRAJ. The memo requesting that operation shows how the GID’s intelligence network extended outside Syria.

“Instruct our stations abroad to follow up on the matter and provide us with the available information, including detailed identities of the operatives running the suspicious platform under the cover of being journalists,” the author of the memo requested.

The GID general director was Hussam Luqa, who has been sanctioned by the European Union and is nicknamed “The Spider.” His whereabouts are unknown, and he did not respond to questions sent via WhatsApp.

While Luqa approved the operation, it is unclear from the documents what assets were deployed or what specific activities were undertaken. And the regime collapsed soon afterwards.

However, shortly after the memo was written, two armed GID agents showed up at the Damascus workplace of the father of a SIRAJ journalist who lives abroad. They interrogated him for three hours about his son, and searched his phone. For fear of being detained, the journalist’s family left their home for a few days after the interrogation.

Long Road to Justice

As terrifying as that interrogation was, many Syrians suffered much worse under the Assad regime.

The security services were notorious for torturing people to extract information. Prisons were filled with those suspected of working against the regime, while thousands of other people simply disappeared.

With Assad gone and an interim government in place, victims and their families are demanding accountability. But the question remains: What will that look like?

“International justice offers various ways to prosecute Bashar al-Assad for the murders of journalists during the years of repression that followed the popular uprising of 2011,” said Bruttin of RSF. “However, one can hope that the Syrian justice system could do the job in the near future.”

Credit: Imago/Alamy Stock Photo

Protesters demanding the release of detained journalists and activists in Idlib, Syria.

 

Whatever legal avenue is chosen, Bruttin warned that justice will not arrive anytime soon, as researchers need to identify victims and gather evidence against those responsible.

“A long way awaits all those who want to hold to account those responsible for these heinous crimes,” he said.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has also urged Syria’s new government to pursue accountability for media workers who were murdered and imprisoned during the civil war.

“The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities to take decisive action to ensure the safety of all journalists,” the advocacy group added in a statement.

While the Assad regime is responsible for the killing of at least 181 journalists, according to RSF, another 102 were murdered by other parties. That includes six journalists killed by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, which is now running the country.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham did not respond to a request for comment before publication.

Restoring trust in the judicial system is a priority for the new government, a spokesperson told Al Jazeera. That includes setting up special tribunals to try members and supporters of the Assad regime who “committed crimes against Syrians,” he said.

Additional reporting by David Kenner (ICIJ) and Feras Delatey.

The post Documents Found After the Fall of Assad Show Syrian Intelligence Spying on Journalists appeared first on SIRAJ.

Following over a decade of war that saw over half a million killed and more than 12 million people displaced, the EU placed some of the world’s heaviest sanctions on the Assad regime for its role in perpetuating human rights abuses.  

Yet, the investigation revealed that the Assad army is utilizing EU-branded trucks from Volvo, Scania, Mercedes and Iveco to transport tanks and heavy artillery to the front lines. These vehicles can be indirectly shipped to the war-torn country via traders and customs brokers who route them secretly through Syria’s neighboring countries. 

Existing EU sanctions do not ban exports of trucks from the EU to Syria but Swedish MEPs are now calling for Brussels to eliminate this loophole.

“We absolutely believe that the information revealed in this article should prompt the EU to update its sanctions policy,” Hanna Gedin and Jonas Sjöstedt, from the Swedish Left Party (Vänsterpartiet), told OCCRP: 

“We will submit a written question to the European Commission, urging it to review and update its sanctions towards Syria in order to stop EU exports that directly or indirectly contribute to human rights violations in Syria.”

“We don’t think any European truck company wants blood on their hands,” Gedin and Sjöstedt concluded.

Meanwhile, Jacob Risberg, the foreign affairs spokesperson for the Green Party (Miljöpartiet), said that the investigation was a “disturbing read” and that “loopholes [in the EU sanctions regime] need to be detected and dealt with promptly.”

Risberg also called for Volvo and Scania, whose vehicles were used by the Syrian army, “to have a thorough look at their due diligence systems.”

Maja Åberg, a policy advisor at Amnesty Sweden, also highlighted to OCCRP’s partner Blankspot the need for rigorous due diligence: “All companies, including Scania and Volvo, have a responsibility to follow the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.” 

The NGO stressed that this due diligence should apply “throughout the entire value chain, from start to end use” and that this is critical in conflict zones. 

“Given the risk that military equipment transported on the trucks could be used by

 the Syrian military to commit serious human rights violations, […] it can be questioned whether the company has truly fulfilled its obligations,” Åberg concluded.

Both Scania and Volvo informed OCCRP during the investigation that they are committed to complying with relevant laws and regulations, but can not control sales of used trucks by third parties.

The chairman of the Swedish parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee and MP for the right-wing Swedish Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna), Aron Emilsson, told Blankspot that it can be challenging to control “civilian vehicles” used for military purposes. 

However, the regulations framework governing dual-use products, has a “catch-all” clause. This would require licenses for the export of products destined to countries outside the EU, even if the items were not explicitly listed on sanctions lists.

He said that he was “not opposed to the idea of bringing up the matter in the (Swedish parliaments’) Foreign Affairs Committee.”

The “SIRAJ” investigation, in collaboration with the OCCRP, uncovered the secret supply chain of European trucks being sent to Syria. It was published in Arabic on the Daraj website, confirming that Assad’s army uses trucks from European brands like Volvo, Scania, Mercedes, and Iveco to transport tanks and heavy artillery to front lines. These vehicles can be indirectly shipped to Syria via traders and customs brokers who secretly route them through neighboring countries.

The Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism (SIRAJ) was founded by a group of Syrian journalists in November 2016 with the aim of promoting investigative and accountability journalism and empowering Syrian journalists in this field.

The post Swedish MEPs to Urge EU to Tighten Sanctions on Syria After OCCRP and SIRAJ Investigation appeared first on SIRAJ.

As 2012 began, the war in Syria entered a new phase, with the Syrian regime continuing its military campaign against the opposition, which had gained control over extensive parts of the country. Around November 2015, Russia officially intervened to support the Syrian regime in its battles and open fronts to shift the balance of power in its favor.

Simultaneously, Western economic sanctions imposed in September 2011 by the European Union and the United States on economic and political figures, including President Bashar al-Assad and his family, significantly weakened the financial position of the Syrian regime. At that time, the Syrian regime heavily relied on paper currency to facilitate transactions, pay salaries to government employees, and manage public spending in the face of sanctions.

Amidst these challenges, in early 2012 the Syrian government established a new way to replenish the country’s treasury with “cash” or physical money. Previously, the Syrian government printed Syrian currency (both paper and metal) in collaboration with a subsidiary of the Central Bank in Austria, but this cooperation ceased due to sanctions. This new currency-printing operation utilized two companies in Cyprus to facilitate the printing process. Despite official government assurances that this step would not affect the economic situation, there remained considerable mystery surrounding the details of this operation.

The printing operation occurred at a time when the Syrian government had an increasing need for liquid cash to finance ongoing government spending, military efforts, and the payment of salaries to government employees, including security forces and the army. A researcher familiar with the printing operation stated: “The current financial policy of the regime relies on financial deficit, and it is believed that this policy is the reason behind resorting to currency printing after the depletion of the foreign currency reserves of 20 billion Syrian pounds in 2011. This trend led to a reduction in foreign currencies in the markets, which were beyond government control in northern and eastern Syria.”

At that time, the general state budget was 27 billion dollars, the largest in the country’s history. However, it later declined due to the continuation of the security situation, the escalating impact of international sanctions on the regime, and the lack of financial income from exports, constituting 25% of the government’s budget and reaching 16,550 billion Syrian pounds (about 5.489 billion dollars at the official exchange rate).

Economic advisor and head of the Syria Economic Working Group, Dr. Osama Al-Qadi, explains that when the value of the currency decreases, the central bank finds itself compelled to print large amounts of money to cover the increasing inflation and rising wages.

A new investigation by SIRAJ reveals the behind-the-scenes actions of the Syrian currency-printing operations under the supervision of the Central Bank of Syria, through the use of services provided by two companies based in Cyprus, an EU member.  A Syrian-Russian businessman who owns the printing operation has been described by the U.S. Department of the Treasury as being subject to sanctions. This information comes from the “Cyprus Confidential” project, conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in collaboration with SIRAJ, Paper Trail Media, and 68 media partners worldwide.

“Cyprus Confidential” Revelations

ICIJ’s project, which  also included the Syrian Investigative Journalism Unit – SIRAJ – reveals how Russian elite, including those close to President Vladimir Putin, used financial service companies based in Cyprus to protect their wealth. It further details how, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, these entities safeguarded assets worth billions of dollars from imminent sanctions.

The ICIJ’s analysis of over 3.6 million leaked documents found nearly 800 companies and credit funds registered in secretive jurisdictions owned or controlled by Russians subjected to sanctions since 2014. The investigation also uncovered dealings between the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad and a registered intermediary in Cyprus regarding the purchase of American oil-drilling equipment during the peak of the Syrian civil war, despite U.S. and EU sanctions.

These companies include over 650 Cypriot entities, serving as parent companies for Russian properties, subsidiaries of Russian conglomerates, and mysterious entities used to conceal investments in globally renowned real estate, yachts, and artwork.

Funding Assad’s Military Efforts

In the summer of 2012, Joznak, the government-controlled Russian Mint company responsible for currency printing, Joznak,, conducted a secret operation to print new Syrian banknotes, weighing a total of 240 tons.

According to the “Cyprus Confidential” documents obtained by SIRAJ, the Syrian regime relied on companies and brokers in Moscow for banknote printing in 2012 to circumvent international sanctions, violating both U.S. and EU sanctions and the Caesar Act.

The Caesar Act, signed in December 2019, aims to impose sanctions on the Syrian regime and individuals associated with it, as well as entities supporting its activities, targeting specific industries such as aviation, oil and gas production, central bank, and currency printing operations.

By January 2014, a draft contract was established between Joznak and the Cyprus-registered company Frumineti Investments LTD, facilitating the printing of hundreds of millions of Syrian pound-denominated banknotes.

The U.S. Treasury Executive Order further revealed that two registered Cypriot companies, Piruseti Enterprises LTD and Frumineti Investments LTD, served as executive interfaces for the Syrian regime in 2014. They assisted in facilitating the banknote printing process, thereby violating international sanctions and the Caesar Act.

Jihad Yazigi, a Syrian economic analyst, noted that Lebanon, although officially ceasing official dealings with the Syrian regime due to Western sanctions, still serves as a primary location to evade sanctions. He highlighted the strong historical and familial ties between Syria and Lebanon, facilitating joint ventures and partnerships, even though efforts decreased significantly after the Lebanese economic collapse.

The investigation also sheds light on the extensive network of financial transactions and hidden assets orchestrated by the Russian elite through Cypriot entities and the complicity of Lebanese partners in facilitating these operations. The involvement of Cyprus and Lebanon in such financial activities raises concerns about their roles in enabling and supporting regimes facing international sanctions.

The revelations in the “Cyprus Confidential” project underscore the intricate web of financial operations involving Russian elites, Syrian regime figures, and international entities. The investigation not only exposes the exploitation of financial loopholes but also highlights the need for more robust measures to combat illicit financial activities that undermine international sanctions and contribute to the perpetuation of oppressive regimes.

Financial fronts for the Syrian Regime

Before the signing of the contract between Joznak and the Central Bank of Syria, in late 2012, Tempbank, a Russian bank sanctioned by the United States issued a letter of credit on behalf of the Cypriot company Piruseti on behalf of the Central Bank of Syria. This company had previously played a similar role in facilitating transactions for the Syrian government through the sanctioned Central Bank of Syria.

In July 2013, Syrian banking and business officials participated in paying Piruseti over $4 million for a European energy company. In this transaction, a Russian bank, acting on behalf of Piruseti, paid the authorization document to the energy company. Piruseti acted on behalf of the Central Bank of Syria to initiate this deal, complying with the sanctions order issued by the U.S. Treasury.

To identify the owners of the Cypriot companies that facilitated this process, SIRAJ scrutinized the records of these two Cypriot companies.

The Secret Work of Shell Companies

Front companies play a vital role in facilitating operations for internationally sanctioned entities such as the Syrian regime. They provide a legal and commercial interface to engage with the international market despite reservations against these governments. These companies typically operate in complex and non-transparent ways, allowing sanctioned governments to achieve their objectives without drawing international attention.

The open corporates platform, an international company registration database, provides more information about these two Cypriot companies and their owner, Syrian-born businessman Issa Al Zaidi, who holds Russian citizenship. Al Zaidi was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2014, subjecting him to asset freezes and property bans, according to the U.S. Treasury.  The two companies were also sanctioned in the same year.

Piruseti Enterprises LTDwas founded on July 26, 2011, while Frumineti Investments LTD was officially established a day later. Issa Al Zaidi, born in Syria and holding Russian citizenship, graduated in 1964 from Bauman Moscow State Technical University, where he studied engineering. He is the owner and CEO of several small companies with “no significant capital,” according to the records. Al Zaidi has international connections with the Center for Scientific Studies and Research, believed to be the Syrian government agency responsible for developing and producing non-conventional weapons and ballistic missiles, according to the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

SIRAJ directed questions to Issa Al Zaidi about his role in the currency-printing process through his Cypriot companies, but he did not respond to the inquiries.

Two Cypriot companies that facilitated the printing of Syrian banknotes were dissolved in 2016, even though they and their founders remain on the U.S. sanctions list.

New Syrian Banknotes and Money Transfer Methods

According to economic expert Dr. Karam Shaar, the most significant factor that led the Syrian regime to print banknotes is the substantial need for cash liquidity to cover expenses. This need has been evident in the recurring deficits in the Syrian budgets in recent years.

Dr. Shaar explains that the resources allocated for spending were much less than required, leading to the printing of additional amounts to fill this gap, mostly categorized under the “taken from reserves” section in the budget.

Budget expenditures are typically divided into current and investment expenditures. Current expenditures include ongoing expenses such as salaries, pensions, and administrative expenses. Dr. Shaar, a Senior Fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy Investigations, states that the printed money is primarily injected into the market by paying salaries, both for military personnel and civilians, along with the routine needs of the state for daily expenditures.

How Were the Funds Transferred to Damascus?

The Syrian Central Bank denied any money transfer operations in 2012 and affirmed that the new banknotes in circulation, particularly the 5,000 Syrian pound notes, were intended solely for replacing damaged or worn-out currency and had no impact on the economy.

But according to flight records  reviewed by SIRAJ, a Syrian government aircraft transported a total of 240 tons of banknotes from Moscow to Damascus over a 10-week period from July 9 to September 15, 2012. The documents indicate that Syrian Air Force Ilyushin-76 cargo planes conducted eight round-trip flights between Damascus International Airport and Vnukovo Airport in Moscow, transporting 30 tons of banknotes on each return flight to Syria. These records have copies in both Arabic and English, along with copies of transit requests sent to Iran in Persian.

Each time “banknotes” were listed in the cargo, the plane took an indirect route. Instead of flying directly over Turkish airspace, as civilian planes do, the Ilyushin-76 cargo plane operated by the Syrian Air Force avoided Turkey, flying over Iraq, Iran, and Azerbaijan.

• 

• 

  A book directed from the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the embassy in Tehran, explaining the quantities of banknotes intended to be transported aboard the Ilyushin-76 cargo plane

Over a period of 10 weeks from July 9 to September 15, 2012, the Syrian government was in urgent need of cash. The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent eight urgent telegrams through the office of the minister, copies of which were obtained in Arabic, English, and Persian. These telegrams were addressed to the Syrian ambassador’s office in Tehran, urgently requesting the embassy to communicate with the relevant Iranian authorities to obtain permission for the Syrian cargo plane, the Russian-made Ilyushin IL-76T with the registration number YK-ATA, to fly over Iranian airspace for a round trip flight from Damascus to Moscow and back.

One of the telegrams, issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, requested permission from the Iranians to allow the first round trip flight (4421/4422) on September 13, 2012, and the second round trip flight (4423/4424) on September 15, 2012.

These consecutive flights of the Syrian Ilyushin cargo plane were supposed to transport Syrian printed banknotes. A document attached to these telegrams, directed from the ministry to the embassy in three languages, indicated that these flights would transport 30 tons of banknotes from Moscow to Damascus.

The Syrian cargo plane, the Russian-made Ilyushin IL-76T, registered under the number YK-ATA, belonged to the Syrian Arab Airlines.

The 5,000 Syrian Pound Banknote: Addressing Inflation and Financial Challenges

In 2019, the Syrian government reintroduced new banknotes with a denomination of 5,000 Syrian pounds, which entered circulation in 2021. These new banknotes, equivalent to half a U..S.. dollar, were issued to counter the effects of inflation that occurred in previous years, according to a statement from the Central Bank.

The statement highlighted that printing these banknotes aimed to “meet the actual trading needs of banknotes, ensuring ease in cash transactions, reducing their costs, and contributing to addressing the effects of inflation that occurred in recent years. Additionally, it aimed to reduce the density of cash transactions due to the rising prices during the war years.”

Dr. Abdul Hakim Al-Masri, Minister of Economy and Finance in the Interim Syrian Government, told SIRAJ, “With the ongoing deficit, the Syrian regime has been printing new banknotes in Moscow since 2012 until today without productive cover or reserves of foreign currencies or gold. This has caused significant inflation, a decline in the value of the lira, and its collapse, as it was not accompanied by production or reserves of hard currencies and gold.”

According to the website Coin Update, the new banknotes, dated 2019, were produced by the state-owned printing facility Goznak, in Russia, upon the request of the Syrian Central Bank. The 5000 Syrian pound banknote, dated 2019 on both sides, was printed using engraved technology on secure paper with a cotton watermark, boasting high-security features difficult to forge or counterfeit, according to the Central Bank of Syria.

The new 5,000 Syrian pound banknote was introduced by the Central Bank of Syria on January 24, 2021. Five bankers, including experts overseeing banks in Syria and Arab countries, confirmed to SIRAJ that the new banknote was printed in Moscow. However, Syrian and Russian officials did not respond to the investigators’ questions to confirm.

Printing money without backing is likely to have a significant impact on an economy already suffering a severe crisis since 2011. Joseph Daher, a Syrian-Swiss university professor at the University of Lausanne, expects the budget deficit in Syria to increase from 4.86 trillion Syrian pounds (equivalent to 1.62 billion U.S. dollars at the official exchange rate during this period) to 9.5 trillion Syrian pounds (equivalent to 800 million U.S. dollars). This represents a real value decrease of approximately 51%.

In 2023, approximately 90% of Syrians were living below the poverty line, with over 15 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. Additionally, 6.5 million faced food insecurity and 13.2 million required healthcare, according to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

According to the annual budget schedule, nominal values in Syrian pounds increased from 2010 to 2021, accompanied by a significant decrease in the value against the dollar. This could exacerbate inflation, leading to further deterioration in living conditions. The researcher Shaar noted, “The numbers indicate that the fiscal policy relies on printing large amounts of money, with approximately 6 billion Syrian pounds injected into the market in 2012 and 1.4 billion Syrian pounds in 2019.”

Syria’s inflation rate surpassed 16,000% between 2011 and 2023. In 2022, inflation rates were 100.7%, and in 2023 they reached 104.7%, according to data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics and estimated by the Ministry of Finance. The overall inflation rate between 2011 and 2023 is reported to be 16,137.32%.

Experts believe that the primary cause of this inflation is the continuous printing of money, as each printing operation leads to inflation and a decrease in the value of the local currency.

Shaar believes the ongoing budget deficit leads to continuous financial strain, with a deficit in the general budget estimated at around 31% of the total value from 2011 to 2023. A former official at the Commercial Bank of Syria, one of the oldest active banks in Syria, said in a phone call with SIRAJ: “The primary purpose of printing banknotes is to continue paying salaries to employees and security and military forces in the country.” This step is crucial for the survival of the regime”.

The post “Cyprus Confidential”: Syrian Printing Currency Machine appeared first on SIRAJ.

The 6 February earthquake caused widespread destruction over a large area of southern Turkey and northwestern Syria.

Within Syria, the worst-hit region was the opposition-held enclave, including Idlib and parts of Aleppo province, where at least 4,191 people were killed, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR).

In government-controlled areas, the death toll was at least 394 people, with most of those deaths reported in the town of Jableh in Latakia province, according to SNHR.

Other sources put the death toll in Syria even higher. A UN spokesperson told Siraj that at least 6,000 people had died in the country. The International Medical Corps said in April that 7,259 people were confirmed killed in Syria.

After more than a decade of war, the opposition-held region was already in a state of humanitarian crisis, with a population of 4.6 million swollen by those displaced from other areas by the conflict and aid deliveries into the enclave long restricted to a single border crossing from Turkey.

Search and rescue efforts after the earthquake largely relied on volunteers from the Syria Civil Defence, the so-called White Helmets who for years have operated as a de facto emergency service in opposition-held areas pummelled by air strikes and shelling.

Footage showed White Helmets volunteers and others desperately searching for survivors by digging through rubble with their hands and basic tools, highlighting the lack of specialist equipment and the improvised nature of the rescue effort.

“After the earthquake, I evacuated my three daughters from the house to the car and didn’t see them for five days,” said Ahmad Yaziji, a member of the Idlib branch of the Syria Civil Defence.

“Several other volunteers left the evacuation areas in order to bury their loved ones before rapidly returning to the rescue. There were so many locations where people were still alive and trapped under the rubble.”

According to the Syria Civil Defence, its volunteers rescued 2,950 people from the rubble and retrieved the bodies of 2,172 people from 182 sites.

The lack of an immediate UN-coordinated response prompted angry criticism from Raed al-Saleh, the head of the Syria Civil Defence.

Saleh told Siraj his organisation had sent distress calls to the UN on the day of the earthquake requesting the deployment of specialist rescue teams.

Opposition authorities including the Salvation Government, the civil administration in Idlib backed by the dominant Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militant group, and the Turkish-backed Syrian Interim Government in Azaz also requested international assistance.

“Let me be clear: The White Helmets received no support from the United Nations during the most critical moments of the rescue operations,” Saleh wrote in an opinion piece for CNN one week after the earthquake.

“The UN’s failure to respond quickly to this catastrophe is shameful. When I asked the UN why help had failed to arrive in time, the answer I received was bureaucracy. In the face of one of the deadliest catastrophes to strike the world in years, it seems the UN’s hands were tied by red tape.”

The critical importance of a quick response after an earthquake is embedded in search and rescue best practice.

In Turkey there were more than 7,800 live rescues within 24 hours of the earthquake. Despite a massive international effort, only 260 people were rescued alive over the next eight days.

In opposition-held Syria, the situation was very different. Families of some of the victims interviewed by Siraj have described hearing voices trapped under collapsed buildings for several days.

They believe their loved ones and many more lives could have been saved if rescue teams with appropriate equipment had been quickly deployed.

Muhammad al-Mustafa, 32, from the town of Jindires near the Turkish border, said he had to listen helplessly to the cries of his two-year-old son Wafeek and other members of his family trapped under the ruins of their home.

“It was like doomsday,” said Mustafa. “I remember how the voices started to fade on the second day. We couldn’t get them out on our own. There was so much rubble we needed specialist equipment.”

A search team eventually retrieved the bodies of Mustafa’s wife, son, parents and three siblings.

“The fact I could hear my child pleading for me to save him while I was unable to do so devastated me the most,” said Mustafa.

Similarly tragic scenes were playing out in towns and villages across the northwest.

In Bseenah, near Salqin in northwest Idlib province, 39-year-old Rami al-Abdullah said he could hear the screams of his wife and eldest daughter trapped under the rubble for two days after the quake. Only his one-and-a-half-year-old son was eventually pulled out alive.

“The whole village was demolished, and the Civil Defence could not reach everyone and save them,” said Abdullah. “Residents were trying to help, but they were afraid of aftershocks and new collapses.”

‘Coordination mechanisms’

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) operates an international emergency response system with the capacity to send rescue teams anywhere in the world within hours of a disaster.

The two main organisations, described by Ocha as “coordination mechanisms”, within this system are United Nations Disaster and Coordination (Undac) and the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (Insarag).

Undac’s responsibilities include assessing and coordinating emergency response missions, while Insarag is a network of search and rescue teams from 90 UN member states and international organisations.

Undac and Insarag typically send teams into disaster zones at the request of a government. But UN guidelines also allow for rescue efforts to be initiated by a UN resident coordinator in the affected country.

According to several sources who spoke to Siraj, including el-Mostafa Benlemlih, the UN’s resident coordinator in Syria until earlier this month, the Syrian government did file a request to the UN for help, but this was limited to government-controlled areas.

Benlemlih, who spoke to Siraj while he was still in the role, described Undac’s work as a “complement to national efforts”.

“The Undac team was deployed as soon as they received a request from the usual channels [the Syrian government]. The team was deployed to assess the situation in Aleppo, Latakia, Tartous, Homs and Hama,” said Benlemlih.

Asked why Undac had not deployed to opposition-held areas, Benlemlih said the UN had been “fully prepared to support those affected in Idlib and [opposition-held areas of] Aleppo”.

But he added: “However, the activation of the response system is linked to the approval of the concerned authorities, and is also linked to the provision of mechanisms to support logistical work and protection. These conditions were not available even for the humanitarian support we tried to deliver in the first hours of the disaster.”

Earlier this month, the UN named Adam Abdelmoula as its new residential coordinator in Syria.

Documents obtained by Siraj also show UN and Syrian officials discussed sending aid convoys – but not search and rescue teams – into opposition-held areas in the days after the earthquake.

But no convoys were sent across the front line. According to Reuters, the delivery of aid from government-held areas was opposed by HTS.

Details about Insarag’s response within Syria, and issues which hindered the UN rescue effort in the country, were discussed at a meeting of Insarag team leaders in Singapore on 28 February.

Search and rescue teams from Russia, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates were deployed to Latakia, and teams from Tunisia, Armenia, Algeria and China were deployed to Aleppo, according to a presentation delivered at the meeting.

But challenges faced by Undac and Insarag included a “lack of awareness of the Government of Syria of the international response mechanisms” and the “lack of a basic structure to receive and coordinate international assistance including USAR [urban search and rescue]”.

Team leaders complained that coordination had been complicated by the involvement of multiple entities, including civil defence, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and national security, and by an “inconsistent approach of LEMA [local emergency management agency] in assigning USAR teams to geographic sectors”.

The Syrian government had not responded at the time of publication to questions from Siraj and MEE about why it had not asked for international rescue teams to be deployed to opposition-controlled areas.

In response to questions about why Undac and Insarag teams were not deployed into opposition-held Syria, Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for Ocha, said the deployment of search and rescue teams through Insarag was a matter for national governments rather than the UN.

Laerke said: “To be clear, the United Nations does not have search-and-rescue capabilities, including heavy machinery, nor does it decide which teams deploy to which countries for how long.”

Ocha’s role through Undac, he said, was limited to coordinating the work of search and rescue teams and sharing updates about casualties, damage and requests for assistance.

“While the UN can decide where to deploy its own staff, the decision to deploy national search-and-rescue teams rests solely with the national governments of those teams,” said Laerke.

‘Speed is critical’

Yet the failure of the UN to coordinate the deployment of search and rescue teams into opposition-controlled areas appears to fall short of Undac’s own guidelines on responding to “complex emergencies”, such as in countries in a state of civil war.

These guidelines are contained in the Undac Handbook, a reference guide for Undac team members involved in emergency missions.

The handbook acknowledges that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states must be fully respected, and that humanitarian assistance should be provided with the consent of the affected country.

But it makes an exception in circumstances in which “the legitimacy and territory of the State is under, often violent, dispute”.

The guidance reads: “This situation makes the adherence to the above principles problematic in complex emergencies. In these cases the commitment to the victims may supersede the commitment to the State.”

The handbook advises that “coordination efforts will need to acknowledge the legitimacy of competing authorities [and]… maintain effective relationships not only with the State but also with the antagonists and political opposition”.

It stresses, too, the urgency of deploying emergency teams as quickly as possible, particularly in the aftermath of an earthquake.

“In a natural disaster speed of response is critical and is measured in hours and days. This is especially so in an earthquake situation where trapped people are unlikely to survive more than 3-4 days unless rescued.”

According to one legal expert, the Syrian government’s failure to request or facilitate the deployment of rescue teams to opposition-held territory may be in breach of principles of international humanitarian law established through the Geneva Conventions guaranteeing access to conflict zones for humanitarian actors.

“If the Syrian authorities refused these teams entry into areas beyond their control, this is an arbitrary rejection prohibited by international law,” said Sama Kiki, executive director of the Syrian Legal Development Programme, a UK-based legal advocacy organisation.

Kiki added that a periodically renewed UN Security Council resolution permitting humanitarian aid to be sent into northwest Syria from Turkey through the Bab al-Hawa crossing offered a further legal avenue, and an established route, for Undac and Insarag teams to be deployed into opposition territory.

Bodies instead of aid

The situation in northwest Syria was in stark contrast to the UN response in southern Turkey, where Insarag deployed 221 search and rescue teams from 82 countries in support of the rescue effort by Turkey’s own disaster agency (Afad), according to documents reviewed by Siraj.

In Idlib, the only international response in the days after the earthquake was a visit by a three-person Spanish team who crossed into Syria through Bab al-Hawa on 9 February independently of the UN aid effort.

Mazen Aloush, the media officer for the crossing, said the visit had been coordinated by a Salvation Government charitable support coordination office. It lasted only a few hours and was limited in its scope to assessing the damage, Aloush said.

Muhammad al-Sadiq, a Salvation Government spokesperson, said the Spanish team had trained local volunteers to use a sensor device to detect people still alive under the rubble.

No other equipment was provided, and hopes of finding any further survivors had by then mostly faded.

The Syria Civil Defence head Saleh told Siraj that assessment teams from a number of UN agencies finally entered opposition-held Syria six days after the earthquake.

“These were needs assessment teams, and not search and rescue,” Saleh said.

“After six days people had already died. No one was left from those who were alive.”

Those critical of the UN’s failure to send search and rescue teams and heavy-duty rescue equipment into Idlib through Bab al-Hawa question remarks, made by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on 9 February, in which he said damage to roads leading to the crossing had hindered the aid effort.

According to Aloush, the spokesperson for Bab al-Hawa, within hours of the earthquake the bodies of Syrians killed in Turkey were being delivered to the border post.

“On the evening of the same day, we received cars carrying bodies from all the stricken Turkish provinces without any problem on the roads,” he said.

Border crossing authorities reported 85 bodies delivered to Bab al-Hawa one day after the earthquake, with the number rising over the next few days to more than 1,200. Photos and videos posted on social media showed some of these bodies being delivered on flatbed trucks.

Laerke, the Ocha spokesperson, told Siraj that cross-border aid into northwest Syria had been briefly suspended due to road damage and because of casualties and injuries among staff at a UN aid hub in Reyhanli.

The failings of the UN response were frankly acknowledged by Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian relief chief, during a visit to Bab al-Hawa on 12 February.

“We have so far failed the people in northwest Syria. They rightly feel abandoned. Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived,” Griffiths wrote in a tweet.

“My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can. That’s my focus now.”

The following day, Griffiths was in Damascus for talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Soon afterwards, two more border crossings from Turkey into opposition-held northwest Syria had opened for the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Fadel Abdul Ghany, the chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, said that serious questions remained unanswered about the failure of the UN to deploy search and rescue teams into opposition-held territory.

“There was negligence on the part of the United Nations,” he said. “This is incomprehensible, unjustified, immoral and illegal.”

Ghany believes that at least dozens of lives could have been saved if the UN had taken prompt and decisive action. He said he had called on the UN to conduct an internal investigation but had not received a response.

UN officials, he said, had talked at length about the mechanisms and details of the earthquake response, but without providing adequate answers as to what had gone wrong.

“In the end, all of these mechanisms failed,” said Ghany.

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“The corpses the officers had marked we would later dig up and hand back to them. They would ask the victims’ families for $1,500 to $3,000 per body.”

Syria’s Sinister yet Lucrative Trade in Dead Bodies, Anwar al-Muhammad was wandering around the garbage dump like he had done for years, looking for anything of value that could be traded or sold, when he suddenly smelt a strange smell. It was moldy mixed with the reek of flesh. At first he thought it was a dead dog.

What the 35-year-old garbage collector found instead in the landfill in the village of Hadath east of Aleppo would turn his life upside down, and turn him into a very rich man.

As it turned out, the smell emanated from the partly decomposed body of someone recently liquidated by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).“If it were not for the remains of God’s creation, I would not have been able to build my house on the land I inherited from my father,” said Anwar pointing at his home. “Look, it has a courtyard and stone fences. And I have planted olive seedlings.” Having dug a hole next to the dump Anwar buried what was left of the corpse. He feared leaving it out in the open might attract stray dogs. This was in August 2014.

Like most people in the region, Anwar did not know why ISIS killed these people and dumped their bodies the way they did. Yet, on the foreheads of most of the bodies ISIS fighters had written in blue or black “infidel” or “apostate.”

After the first corpse had been dumped, many others followed,” Anwar explained. “Most bodies had ropes around their feet, hands or necks. Initially, the ISIS fighters warned me that if I were to recognize a body and contact the family, my place would be among the dead.”

Like most people in the region, Anwar did not know why ISIS killed these people and dumped their bodies the way they did. Yet, on the foreheads of most of the bodies ISIS fighters had written in blue or black “infidel” or “apostate.”

ISIS used to throw bodies in wells, dry streams or river beds and garbage dumps, according to reports issued by both local and international human rights organizations.

Anwar gradually became aware that the bodies had a value and price, as some point he started selling them to the victims’ relatives. “That’s how I made the money I would never have made just working in a landfill,” he said.

13th Century Fatwa

From 2013 to 2015, more than 20 mass graves were found across Syria, containing thousands of bodies. One of the most famous places where ISIS used to dump its victims is the 50-meter deep Al-Hota pit, located some 85 kilometers from the northern city of Raqqa.

“The Al Hota gorge was once a beautiful natural site,” said Syrian researcher Sarah Kayyali in Into The Abyss, a report issued by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in May last year. “It became a place for terror and punishment.”

During our 18-month investigation in Syria and neighboring countries, we did many interviews and obtained photographs confirming the trade in dead bodies. We tracked four cases in different geographical areas to ensure there is a pattern to the trade which has made some individuals involved in the conflict very rich indeed.

In the governorates of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa and the countryside of Aleppo, ISIS did not give the bodies to the families, based on a fatwa issued by the 13th century Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, which states it is forbidden to bury an “apostate” in a Muslim cemetery. And so ISIS threw them in wells, dumps and large pits instead.

In 2015, one family was searching the dumps in the countryside north of Allepo for the body of their son, who had been killed by ISIS for “dealing with foreign parties.”The family met Anwar and offered him $7,000 for finding their son, after they had been told his body was thrown onto a village dump. They even told Anwar not to worry “if the corpse were decayed, for they could still recognize it from the teeth.”

Anwar told the ISIS fighters who regularly came to the dump to throw bodies about the family looking for their son. They demanded $10,000 for the body. Anwar would get a commission of 100,000 Syrian pounds.

8,143 People Still Missing

“The Islamic State’s (ISIS) expansion in Iraq and Syria featured horrendous public abuses,” HRW stated in its report Kidnapped By ISIS, which was issued in February 2019. “Largely unseen but equally egregious were the widespread detentions and kidnappings – thousands of people snatched from their homes and cars and at checkpoints, who subsequently went missing.”

While the full scale of the missing is not known, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has reported more than 8,143 cases of individuals detained by ISIS whose fates remain unknown. The majority of those taken were men. But HRW also documented the disappearances of several women.

“ISIS members would ask for money in exchange for informing families about the fate of their son,” Anwar said. “People did not bargain a lot.”

When we were researching other waste dumps in the Aleppo countryside to confirm what Anwar told us, one worker there told us: “They were throwing bodies, once or twice a day. And I also saw them take bodies from the dump.”

Yasser Al-Najjar used to work as an official for the Syrian military authorities negotiating the exchange of prisoners and dead bodies. “ISIS at times had crippling conditions in their requests,” he said in his office in Kilis in southern Turkey. “But that did not stop them from selling bodies for money. In the shadows, far away from media and cameras, anything is possible in Syria.”

SNHR director Fadel Abdul-Ghani told us how one of his teams once witnessed an exchange between the Syrian regime and opposition factions, in which the bodies of Iranian militants were handed over in return for the release of detainees.

In Damascus

A Syrian man currently living in the Swedish capital Stockholm used to work for a public funeral service in Damascus which transported bodies to cemeteries on a daily basis. At first, he refused to speak with us, but after several calls he finally agreed to give us his testimony on the condition of anonymity.

“Our assignment was to transport bodies from the Tishreen Military Hospital and the Mezzeh 601 Military Hospital to two large cemeteries in Qatifah, north of Damascus, and one in Najha, south of the capital,” he said. “The car looked like a decorated box with pictures of Bashar al-Assad on all sides, so we could pass all checkpoints.”

“Some corpses had specific numbers or signs on them, which we would bury next to the mass grave,” he continued. “The others were thrown into the mass grave, one on top of the other, and covered with sand by a bulldozer.”

“The corpses which the officers had marked, we would later take out and hand back to them,” he added, after pausing to drink a cup of water. “For each body, they demanded some $1,500 to $3,000 from the victims’ families.”

He then made us listen to audio recordings and phone messages of conversations between him and the military and security officers. He estimated the total number of bodies he contributed to selling at 125.

According to HRW, the Syrian regime arrested and forcibly disappeared tens of thousands of people. The detention centers under its control are known for the widespread and systematic use of torture, and catastrophic living conditions. According to the SNHN, there are still some 130,000 detainees in the detention centers of the Syrian regime, including 7,913 women and 3,561 children, which represents 88.5% of all detainees in Syria.

The Corpse Market

In August 2020, 30-year-old May learnt that her husband Zaid Jibril had been killed three years after his arrest by the Syrian regime’s security forces for “organizing anti-regime demonstrations.” He was buried in the Qatifah cemetery north of Damascus,May said she was forced to sell her house to be able to pay $7,000 to an officer in the Syrian security services through a local broker, who then brought her husband’s body, so she could bury it.

“I thank God I was able to obtain my husband’s body so our children can visit,” said May by Skype from a refugee camp in the northwestern state of Idlib. “Many families paid money to regime officers and brokers. Many sold everything they owned to obtain news of their loved ones.”

“Trading in corpses, mortgaging them to exchange or sell them is considered a crime against humanity by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” said legal expert Hussein Hamadeh.

According to him, any assault on or mutilation of corpses, leaving them in the open, not allowing them to be buried, using them as tools of political pressure or selling them violates international law. Authorities are furthermore not allowed to intentionally withhold information about those missing, given the level of anxiety and mental stress it produces for friends and families. When the person in question dies, the authorities must provide the family with information regarding the place of burial.

Five BodiesAhmed Al-Sayed’s family learnt that one of their sons had been arrested by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) during their control of the city of Raqqa in October 2017.

The young man was arrested after an airstrike near the Abu Al-Hays intersection. The 34-year-old was transferred to a nearby medical center. His father told us that the family had asked all the center’s health workers about their son, but at first they could not find him.

A few days later a  military source told the family their son had been killed. Obtaining the body would cost them $10,000. “We paid the full amount to a SDF commander through a local broker and started digging near the archaeological park in Raqqa,” said Ahmed’s brother. “We found five bodies, one of which was my brother. We reburied the others in the same place, while we took my brother’s body to the family cemetery on the outskirts of Raqqa.”

We requested representatives of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, as well as the Syrian Ministry of Interior to comment on our findings, yet did not receive a response.

As soon as the burial begins, the march of Abu Al-Ward begins too. And of all others who work just like him.

The March of Abu Ward

Abu Al-Ward is a local broker in the city of Idlib. After burying some bodies, he and three young men set out to search for a corpse that someone had asked for in exchange for $3,000.

In the center of Idlib, you can see bodies entering the forensic medical center on a daily basis. They were found, or belong to people killed in mysterious circumstances. Some 75 bodies a week arrive, according to the center’s documentation office.

“There are bodies that the courts and hospitals refuse to hand over to their families, especially those known as Shabiha [gangs closely related to the Baath Party],” said Abu Al-Ward by WhatsApp. “What follows is the process of handing over the body and receiving the money.”

“The body remains in the fridge for some 15 days to a month,” said Ali Al-Taqash who works at a medical center. “Samples for DNA testing are stored to facilitate future identification.”

As soon as the burial begins, the march of Abu Al-Ward begins too. And of all others who work just like him.

The Corpse in the Well

On January 6, 2014, the family of Mohamad al-Ali (a pseudonym) managed to obtain his body, which had been thrown in a well near the town of Deir Sunbul in the Idlib countryside.

Mohamad had been kidnapped at a checkpoint of the Syrian Revolutionaries Front (SRF) and was later liquidated by a gunshot to the head

“After negotiations that lasted for days, we paid a local mediator $10,000 and the SRF allowed us to extract the body from the well,” said the young man’s family.

Local activists we met in the north of Syria and Turkey said they witnessed the sale of at least five bodies between January 2012 and March 2014. Their statements were backed by photographs and videos of the negotiations and sale, which are in our possession.

Military Gains

On the road between the Jenderes border crossing and the village of Qatma north of Aleppo, we met Abu Jaafar, who used to be responsible for forensic medicine in the opposition-held areas east of Syria until late 2016.

He had witnessed the exchange of bodies between the armed opposition and the regime and pointed at another dimension of the trade, which reflected military gains in the war.

“The body of one fighter in an Iranian-backed militia was exchanged for five or six detainees alive in the prisons of the Syrian regime,” he said.

The Syrian war has witnessed countless negotiations and exchanges of bodies and prisoners between the regime and the opposition. In August 2012, the Al-Baraa Brigade in Eastern Ghouta concluded a deal with the regime to release over 2,000 detainees from Syrian prisons, in exchange for the release of 48 Iranians, most of them belonging to the military.

“Any assault on a corpse is considered a crime prohibited in international law,” said SNHN director Abdul-Ghani. “Take the The Hague Convention on respecting the laws and customs of war, which clearly stipulates a commander is responsible for all actions of people under his command, and calls for respecting the dead and preventing the remains from being despoiled.”

This investigation was carried out under supervision of the Syrian Investigative Journalism Unit Siraj and edited by Mohammad Bassiki. published on DARAJ. 

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Suha al-Ali -Idlib 

To divorce her husband in absentia or to waive her house, were the only two solutions for a Syrian lady to get out of the labyrinth she was put in.

Mariam A., 39, used to live in Ariha city, located in Idlib province, along with her husband who is a conscript in the Syrian regular forces, the thing that forced him later to flee to Damascus after Jaish al-Fatah managed to control Ariha in 2015, as he was a military adversary.

After Jaysh al-Fateh’s takeover, Ariha witnessed violent aerial bombardment, which produced a large number of displaced people including a lady who fled to Kafr Nabl, an adjacent town. After the bombardment stopped, she returned back along with her children to her two-room house, but she was shocked to see a family of al-Nusra Front fighter residing there. They told her that the house was confiscated because her husband was one of the Syrian regime’s Shabbiha.

It was almost three years since the incident, during which Jaish al-Fatah was dissolved, as al-Nusra Front separated from it, and changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and then to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham(HTS) after its separation from al-Qaeda.

However, what has not changed is that Mariam lost both her house and husband.

The maze of getting the house back

Mariam was not the only one whose house was confiscated; as the writer of this report counted the confiscation of 46 houses, throughout Idlib province, between 2013 and 2018 by HTS (formerly al-Nusra Front) and Jaish al-Fatah before it. She got this information through interviews, with persons whose houses were confiscated, and field visits, with a direct survey in several towns and villages of Idlib.

This six-month investigative report showed that HTS used two pretexts to seize people’s houses, where it either accused the person of being “Shabih” or an “apostate” without legal warrant. It was enough for the members of the Sharia Court or the judiciary, affiliated to HTS to write, “seized” or “at the disposal of the Sharia Court” on any house to confiscate it. From here, the legal owner of the house starts his long journey in courts to get it back. However, most of the civilians interviewed, failed in getting back their houses due to the lack of impartiality in HTS courts, since the entity that seizes the house is the same that took office, besides the lack of competence of HTS’ court judges, according to homeowners and eyewitnesses from the same area.

This violates Rule 50 of “Customary International Humanitarian Law” which stated; “the destruction or seizure of the property of an adversary is prohibited, unless required by imperative military necessity.”

This rule applies to non-international armed conflicts, such as the Syrian conflict, and applies also to the members of non-state armed groups, like HTS, according to a written response obtained by the preparer of this investigation from STJ, an independent human rights organization works to document human rights violations, stating that the seizure of houses and other properties of Idlib residents by HTS is a breach of its obligations as a party to the conflict and a clear violation of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL).

After confiscating her house, Mariam never gave up. She started asking Jaish al-Fatah Sharia Courts for assistance to get back her house, which is the only shelter for her and her children.

She headed to the court and told them that she had a legal contract of sale between her and her husband, which proves her ownership to half of the house, but judges there refused to give her back the right to dispose of the house.

However, because of her insistence on getting back her house, the judges suggested that the problem could be resolved by getting divorced in absentia in exchange for giving her back the right to dispose of the house. She refused to do so at first, but then she changed her mind because of two reasons; first, she wanted to get back her only shelter, and the second losing hope to reunite with her husband who was in Damascus, as she told the presenter of this investigation.

By the end of 2015, months after the confiscation of Mariam’s house, she stood at Jaish al-Fatah court and divorced her husband in absentia by a document signed by the judge, who in turn, wrote an eviction order to the new residents of the house immediately.

It was just the shock when the “al-Nusra Front” fighter’s family, settled in the house, never cared for the judge’s note and refused to leave the house. Nonetheless, no action was taken by the court to force them out. Consequently, Mariam had lost her husband in the first place and her only shelter in the second.

At the last interview with the presenter of this investigation, Mariam said, “she will never ever return to this area because she was disappointed there” and then Mariam disappeared, and no one knew where she went.

At the Disposal of the Court

Abdulkarim Barbour, who hails from Saraqib city in Idlib countryside, was displaced early in 2013, towards a safe village west of Aleppo as a result of the escalation of the shelling and he still doesn’t dare to return home.

Almost three months after displacement, specifically in April 2013, he accidently saw a photo published on the social media of his own house written on one of its walls “at the disposal of the court”.

Barbour added that he learnt from friends living in the neighborhood that “al-Nusra Front” rents his house to its Syrian and immigrant fighters in rotation.

Barbour dare not sue them out of fear of reprisals, the same fear that had already prevented him from returning home anyway. Therefore, he left his house to its fate.

 Accusation of apostasy

7 out of the 46 seized houses, which were documented by the investigation writer, were confiscated by charging their owners with “apostasy”.
Apostasy is the conscious abandonment of Islam by a Muslim in word, through deed, doubt or loss of faith” according to the Islamic scientific references.

Ali Amin as-Suwayed, 49, from Kafr Nabl but living in Kuwait for more than 20 years, was one of those Syrians whose houses were confiscated after being accused of apostasy.

As-Suwayed is the writer of the famous signs held by protesters in Kafr Nabl town. On April 28, 2015, he published an article criticizing Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the commander of HTS, which in response accused him of apostasy and confiscated his both houses in Kafr Nabl; knowing that his elderly parents lived in one of these houses and his nephew lived in the other.

As-Suwayed said: “al-Nusra Front accused me of apostasy and of distributing Takfiri leaflets”.
As-Suwayed rejected these charges and said that he is proud of being Muslim. Moreover, he faced “allegations of apostasy” with a massive media campaign that involved several activists from Idlib who refused the charge that was never based on clear evidence. This prompted al-Nusra Front to renounce its decision to confiscate as-Suwayed’s houses to avoid public outrage.

However, as-Suwayed added that after al-Nusra Front gave him back the right to dispose of his houses, it arrested his nephew, Bashar as-Suwayed, 23, who was living in one of the two confiscated houses. He has been held for more than 10 months, on a charge of communicating with his uncle, Ali, in order to put pressure on the latter.

The Free Idlib Army opposition faction currently controls Kafr Nabl town. However, HTS still has extensive influence over the town and throughout Idlib province.

Jihadists have the right to seize Shabiha’s houses

The house of Um Muhammad and her family was saved from being seized by HTS at the very last moments, after the latter sent her an eviction notice.

Where on Wednesday, 18 December 2017, a person knocked the door of Um Muhammad’s house located in Ma`arat al-Nu`man city, south of Idlib, and told her that they had to evacuate the house and to go to the courthouse the following day to meet the judge; the man turned to be from HTS courthouse.

“When the judge, who was a sheikh, came in, he started asking about my children and their whereabouts; I replied that they were in Hama city, and that one of them is a civil servant at the central inspection, whereas the other is a taxi driver.” Um Muhammad said.

The woman was shocked when the judge replied that the court had decided to confiscate her house, arguing that her son was working for the Syrian regime, and that her house had to be evacuated within a month as maximum. Despite all her attempts to persuade him that she has no other place to shelter in, and that her other three children had been killed during previous bombardment on the area, the judge did not alter his decision.

“When I asked the judge why he was taking such decision, he answered, “Jihadists have the right to seize shabiha’s houses”

Prior to the expiry of the time limit for the eviction, Um Muhammad contacted a person close to HTS agents to help her asking them to reverse their decision. Indeed, the person, whom Um Muhammad did not disclose his identity, spoke with the Sharia judge at the courthouse to disregard, even temporarily, the confiscation of her house.

While mediation was being applied, the two opposition movements; Nour al-Din al-Zenki and Ahrar al-Sham merged in the name of “Syrian Liberation Front” with the aim to fight HTS.  Fierce battles erupted in Ma`arat al-Nu`man, and led to withdrawal of HTS from the city, in early February. So, Um Muhammad’s house was saved from being confiscated, but in mid-April, HTS re-took the area, which raised again Um Muhammad’s fears of losing her house.

Um Muhammad was not the only person whose house was about to be confiscated by HTS in Ma`arat al-Nu`man. Last June 12, Um Rami, an alias, received a telegram stated that she had to go to HTS courthouse, and when she went there, she was told to evacuate the house she was living in, because it is registered to her son, who is a conscript in the Syrian regular forces.

The house was a two-storey building; the woman used to live downstairs with her children, and rent the upstairs to earn a living. The judge told her to evacuate the downstairs, and to tell the renter to pay the monthly rent to HTS instead.

Um Rami added that she tried to claim that the house was registered to her but she did not have ownership papers; she also tried to convince them that she was not responsible for her son’s actions, but all her attempts failed.

Later the attempts evolved to verbal altercation with the judge, but ended up with the retreat of HTS from the confiscation order, in exchange for paying HTS the monthly rent of the floor she used to rent, which was SYP 10,000.
Consequently, Um Rami lost her sole source of income, in the absence of any breadwinner.

Lack of the courts’ impartiality

The lawyer Ghazwan Qurunful, head of the “Free Syrian Lawyers Aggregation”, which is a Syrian rights organization in Turkey, described the legal arbitration process, deciding house cases in HTS courts as “a judicial circus tent”.

He said: “It is normal that houses were not retrieved, since the entity that confiscated them is the same that established the court, which all its judges are commissioners of the HTS authority and are woefully incompetent. Hence, it is wrong to form such courts with poor methodology and no rules.”

“Forming such courts is an additional offense, as by creating alternatives of the state courts, the armed factions shall commit an offence of “usurpation the Judiciary”, as the power of the judge mustn’t be exercised by any person”, Qurunful said.

“Legally, what HTS agents did is a pillaging property crime, that deprives a person of his right to dispose his property lawfully”, pointing out that it falls under misdemeanors, that there is no transfer of ownership, but just a temporary seizure.

The Syrian judge, Hussein Hamada, who has previously held several judicial positions in the Syrian government, stated; “the process of seizing a real estate has no legal basis; it is a violation of property rights, and has no legal consequences. Those who pass sentences like these must be held accountable”, he added “the Tashbeeh, must not be linked to seizure of the property because the property is safeguarded by the Syrian Constitution, and the pillage is only allowed for the public benefit in exchange for fair compensation.”

Judges of HTS are sharia men, whose scientific qualifications are identities are unclear, as they known by their titles like, Abu Muhammad, or Abu Hajer, etc.

Those sharia men were trained to be judges by attending a 15 day course entitled “Preparing a Sharia Judge”, according to Ahmad Bakour, the Syrian lawyer who was living in Idlib.

This process of judges’ appointment, contravenes Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions, which says “the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples..”

The Minimum guarantees in criminal proceedings are determined by article 14/3 of the International Human Rights Law, which stated that the charged must be informed promptly and in detail in a language which he understands of the nature and cause of the charge against him,  have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence and to communicate with counsel of his own choosing; be tried without undue delay;  be tried in his presence, and defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing and not to be compelled to testify against himself or to confess guilt.

HTS courts are void since they do not apply the standard guarantees of the International Human Rights Law, according to Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ).

From a religious point of view, the Sheikh Ayman Muhammad, alias, a preacher and imam of a mosque in Idlib, indicates that “private property must be confiscated by the governor, who considered to be a guardian; not by a faction agent.” He added “if a faction allowed to do so, then other factions will have the same right since they are equal, which may be result in a complete chaos.”

Utilization not Pillage

We presented our facts to the Ministry of Justice in the “Syrian Salvation Government”, being the only civil rights body in Idlib province.

“The Salvation Government was formed in Idlib in November 2017; headed by Mohammed al-Sheikh. It took over civil administrations, which was previously controlled by HTS, days after its formation”

The Minister of Justice of Salvation Government, Dr. Ibrahim Shasho said: “Since the formation of the Salvation Government, there has been no decision to confiscate any house in Idlib.”

He added: “There is no seizure, but those found guilty of “Tashbeeh”, their houses are attached temporarily for the benefit of the displaced persons. We are an “interim judiciary”, deals with pressing cases, not a permanent one so we have the right to take advantage of houses but not to transfer their ownership.”

Dr. Shasho denied the allegations that the houses were be seized without sentence from the court, saying: “The decision of evacuation is made only by a judgment of the Military Judiciary after hearing the testimony of the Shabih’s house’s residents. And if the Shabih was the only breadwinner of his family, the house would not be evicted, the same if the family has no other house. But if it has two houses, then one of them would be evacuated in favor of a displaced family.”

* This investigation was carried out under the supervision of the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism-SIRAJ, in cooperation with Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ).
Supervised by: the colleague, Ahmad Haj Hamdo.

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Each year, the Award is given to the emerging media initiatives in Middle East and North Africa (MENA), which provide a successful administrative and structural model that drives Arab journalism leaders to progress and become more professional.

SIRAJ competed with 15 emerging media projects after being selected from 150 projects submitted earlier this year to join the center. Later, eight finalists were nominated after being supervised by the center’s supervisors.

Over the course of a year, the mentors from the “Orientation Center” provided the participating projects with tools and knowledge on project management and public administration, technical, digital skills and mobile devices, and the way to develop strategies to help start-ups projects. Eight participants who proved their seriousness during the training period were invited for A week-long training camp end of last year in Jordan in conjunction with the annual conference of (ARIJ) Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism.

According to the International Journalists Network (IJNet), the eight competing projects, including the SIRAJ, have been chosen upon different criterion such as efficiency, the high potential for development, the ability to adopt clear plans for the sustainability of the project, in addition to the quick response of the project owner to the requirements defined by the Center in advance.

“SIRAJ deserved the second prize at the Orientation Center in its fourth session because of the diligence and commitment of the team both to the ongoing investigations and to the efforts given with the supervisor to develop work plans and models that contribute mainly to the continuity of SIRAj as a new project”, said Madonna Khafaga, Program Director of IJNet.

The Syrian Investigative Journalism Unit (SIRAJ) was founded in early November 2016 by a group of Syrian journalists, aiming to disseminate investigative journalism in Syria and to enable Syrian F/M journalists to prove their presence at this type of journalism.

Since its inception, the Unit has produced a number of journalistic investigations. Moreover, SIRAJ trained a number of Syrian journalists on the basics of investigative journalism, and on gender-sensitive investigative journalism.

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