Two former high-ranking Syrian intelligence officials have been charged with war crimes for allegedly torturing Americans and other civilians who were deemed enemies by the Syrian government and held in a military prison, the Department of Justice said Monday.U.S. prosecutors say the two officials in former President Bashar al-Assad맥스카지노�s regime oversaw operations of the detention facilities at the Mezzeh Military Airport near Damascus, where detainees were beaten, electrocuted, hung by their wrists, burned with acid and had their toenails removed. The alleged crimes occurred during the civil war that wracked the country for over a decade and culminated in the extraordinary fall of the Assad regime over the weekend.Former Syrian air force intelligence officers Jamil Hassan, 72, and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, 65, 맥스카지노�created an atmosphere of terror at Mezzeh Prison,맥스카지노� prosecutors said. They were charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes through cruel and inhuman treatment, according to an unsealed indictment filed in federal court in Chicago. Warrants for their arrests have been issued, and they remain at large, the Justice Department said.맥스카지노�The perpetrators of the Assad regime맥스카지노�s atrocities against American citizens and other civilians during the Syrian civil war must answer for their heinous crimes,맥스카지노� U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.맥스카지노�The Justice Department has a long memory, and we will never stop working to find and bring to justice those who tortured Americans,맥스카지노� he said.The alleged torture occurred between January 2012 and July 2019 against perceived enemies of the Assad regime 맥스카지노� which included predominantly Syrian nationals but also foreign nationals and dual nationals, including U.S. citizens, according to the indictment.Hassan, the Syrian intelligence agency맥스카지노�s director who oversaw a network of detention facilities, and Mahmoud, who directed operations at the Mezzeh prison, along with 맥스카지노�their co-conspirators, agreed to identify, intimidate, threaten, deter, punish, immobilize, and kill individuals whom the Syrian Regime suspected of aiding and supporting the Regime맥스카지노�s armed opponents, such as through anti-Regime protest, the provision of medical aid, and public criticism of the Regime, in the armed conflict between the Regime and the Syrian Opposition,맥스카지노� the indictment said.The Justice Department said that in addition to physical torture, the detainees at the prison were forced 맥스카지노�to listen to the screams of tortured prisoners and share cells with the dead bodies of other detainees, while guards threatened to kill and sexually assault their family members. The detainees were also allegedly deprived of adequate food, water, and medical care.맥스카지노�Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement, 맥스카지노�For the second time in a year, the Department of Justice has brought charges against those who committed war crimes against U.S. citizens, deploying a previously unused federal law to hold accountable individuals who engaged in cruel and inhuman atrocities during armed conflict.맥스카지노�Last year, four Russian soldiers were charged with war crimes against an American who was living in Ukraine during Moscow맥스카지노�s invasion, marking the first time the U.S. government used a decades-old law aimed to prosecute those who commit war crimes against American citizens.맥스카지노�Hassan and Mahmoud allegedly oversaw the systematic use of cruel and inhumane treatment on perceived enemies of the Syrian regime, including American citizens,맥스카지노� said FBI Director Christopher Wray. 맥스카지노�The FBI is fully committed to working with our law enforcement partners around the world to ensure these alleged war criminals are held accountable for their actions and justice is brought to the victims of these atrocities.맥스카지노�On Sunday, after 13 years of civil war that fractured the country, the Assad regime came crashing down. Rebel fighters declared Damascus 맥스카지노�liberated맥스카지노� in a video statement on state television, sending Assad fleeing to Russia. More than 300,000 civilians have been killed in more than a decade of war, according to the United Nations, and millions of people have been displaced.For half a century, the Assad family ruled over Syria with an iron fist, with long-documented reports of mass incarceration torture, extra-judicial killings and atrocities against their own people. Assad맥스카지노�s notorious detention facilities were black holes where anyone deemed an opponent of the regime disappeared, with widespread reports of torture and inhumane conditions. But as rebels moved into Damascus, video showed prisoners being freed from the notorious facilities.