The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

Charged with killing regime officer five years ago | Regime authorities release Suleiman al-Assad, amid widespread public discontent

Reliable sources have informed the Syrian Observatory that the regime’s security authorities have released Suleiman al-Assad, a cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, after his arrest in early August 2015, for killing a regime general following a traffic dispute in the streets of Latakia.

It is worth nothing that his father Hilal al-Assad was killed in Kassab battles in Latakia countryside in 2014, where he had served as commander of the National Defense Forces in Latakia.

According to Syrian Observatory sources, the streets of Latakia witnessed, yesterday evening, heavy gunfire by his supporters in celebration of his release. On the other hand, the Syrian Observatory has monitored great popular discontent over his release, where residents ask for the severest punishment against the son of al-Assad.

In August 2015, SOHR sources monitored tension in the city of Latakia and villages in its countryside, the day after the funeral of Colonel Hassan al-Sheikh, an Air Force officer, who was killed on August 6, by Suleiman al-Assad, son of Bashar al-Assad’s cousin, the head of the Syrian regime, and the son of Hilal al-Assad, commander of the National Defense Forces in Syria, who was killed on March 23, 2014.

Suleiman al-Assad had opened fire on Colonel Hassan al-Sheikh at al-Azhari roundabout in the center of Latakia, in front of the Colonel’s children, after the colonel passed Suleiman al-Assad’s car.

It is worth nothing that the wife of Suleiman al-Assad’s father and his sisters, disowned his actions, while Suleiman had tried to exonerate himself, after the Syrian regime authorities interrogated him, amid a state of rage and calls for death penalty on Suleiman al-Assad by the Alawite community and people in the city of Latakia, after killing the officer.