MESOP SPECIAL : Assad regime traps Syrian people abroad via Interpol
(Zaman Alwasl- Special)- 5-10-2014 – Information reported to Zaman al-Wasl revealed that Syrian Regime has distributed thousands of of Syrian passports’ numbers via the Interpol, claiming to be stolen from the Immigration administrations in some Syrian cities, and claimed that many well known opposition figures have these passports. Sources reported to Zaman al-Wasl that some opposition figures were arrested according to Interpol’s arrest warrant forwarded by Syrian regime. Sources reported that many Syrian people were detained in airports of Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Germany and Yemen.
Legally, those passports are not fake or forger, but they are not registered in regime’s registry because they were withdrawn from immigration administrations and sold illegally by mediators from regime and opposition.
Other sources reported that many brokers in neighboring countries worked on selling original passports to desperate people. Judicial source considered the step as an attempt from the Syrian regime to punish Syrian people and harden their lives. The source reported that regime’s security officers and “shabiha” sell passports via mediators and they earned millions of Dollars. Afterward, the regime claims stealing those passports, to punish people and refugees who paid huge amount of money to get them.
The source expects that even people who obtained passports from liberated areas in Syria could face the same troubles with their passports’ numbers. It is well known that regime via its security forces has controlled issuing passports during Syrian revolution, and prevented issuing new passports abroad in boycotting countries, besides it was difficult to issue passports in other Syrian embassies because of Shbiha’s and security forces’ blackmailing. It becomes difficult if not impossible to for an opposition figure to get a passport inside Syria because he needs to contact an intelligence branch.
Another source expects that passports numbers’ case has not arrived to Interpol yet, but the list of suspected passports’ numbers were distributed to some countries and they acted accordingly. According to Zaman al-Wasl’s information, many well-known figures were detained in some airports, one of them The head of military council of Idlib, Col. Afif Suleiman, who was detained in Jeddah airport and refused entry to the country and his passport was taken away from him and was told to collect it from Immigration administration in Aleppo.
Stolen or unregistered passports cost around $1400-2400. https://www.zamanalwsl.net/en/news/6809.html