On 23 September 2012, Mohammad Al Ezzadin, a 34-year-old volunteer sergeant in the army, was working in the weapons warehouses n.558 in the town of Mheen in the Homs Governorate, when members of the Military Security in their uniforms arrested him without providing any warrant. His colleagues who witnessed the scene as well as the driver of the truck who drove him away, affirmed that he was brought to the Military Intelligence premises in Homs.

In December 2012, Mohammad's family inquired about his fate at the military police and was given a non-official paper attesting his death but his corpse was never handed over to the family. Nevertheless, in March 2013, a former co-detainee referred having seen Mohammad in the Military Intelligence premises in Homs. As other cases documented by Alkarama have shown, it is not rare that the Syrian authorities provide families of the disappeared with false death certificates or similar documents.

Fares Kharboutli, a 42-year-old customs officer, was arrested on 29 September 2012 from the hotel in Qamishli in northeastern Syria where he used to liveby members of the Military Intelligence in civilian clothes. According to the hotel staff who witnessed the scene and could recognise the intelligence officers, the latter showed Fares an arrest warrant and brought him to an unknown place. His family later learned that he was being detained in the premises of the Military Intelligence in Qamishli were they visited him once, more than a year after his disappearance, on 15 October 2013.

Following this visit though, his relatives were repeatedly told by the Military Intelligence that Fares was moved to another unknown detention centre and that they were not allowed to visit him anymore. Any demand about his fate was simply dismissed.

On 6 August 2013, Ahmad Al Rahhal, a 49-year-old teacher, was leaving the building of the Directorate of Education in Idlib, northwest Syria, when he was stopped by a patrol of members of the Military Intelligence, some of them in military uniforms, others in civilian clothes. Witnesses to the scene reported that they arrested him and brought him to an unknown location without providing any arrest warrant nor any reason for the arrest.

"These individual cases are further examples of the widespread and systematic practice of enforced disappearances in Syria, which continues to claim thousands of victims in the country and instil a climate of terror so that relatives of victims are even scared to report those violations to the authorities," comments Rachid Mesli, Legal Director at Alkarama. "This practice, which amounts to a war crime and to a crime against humanity, must be ended by the Syrian authorities."

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