Syrian jails were an extortion machine funding ousted rulers
2024-12-16 15:00:03 - From: Al monitor
Ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's vast network of prisons was not simply a tool of his brutal crackdown on opposition to his rule, it was a money-making machine for his supporters.
Desperate Syrians, clinging to the dream of seeing missing sons, husbands and sisters again, say they were systematically shaken down for bribes that together amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars.