Social media accounts posted a video showing the execution of a young man, claiming that he is Ammar al-Assad, cousin of the ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, : “News indicates that the Syrian opposition executed Ammar al-Assad by hanging.”
Kashif verified the video via “Google Images” tool and found that the claim is misleading. The video shows the execution of Ammar al-Asaad in the town of Khirbet Ghazaleh in the countryside of Daraa, not Ammar al-Assad.
On 12/7/2024, Safwan Abdullah’s Facebook account posted the video clip with the following text: “The execution by hanging of Ammar al-Ass’ad and Diana, the wife of the murdered Muhammad Ziad al-Hajj Ali, Abu Ayser, was carried out in the public square in the town of Khirbet Ghazala in the eastern countryside of Daraa, for their conviction of carrying out the murder of the young man Hajj Ali, after they were arrested after taking control of the prison in the city of Izraa.”
On 7 and 10 December 2024, a group of accounts on Facebook published clipped images from the video of the same event, in addition to video clips from different angles of the execution. The accounts stated that they were the execution of Ammar Al-Asaad in Daraa.
On 7/12/2024, the Khirbet Ghazala Lens account on Facebook published a live broadcast of 31.39 minutes, documenting the execution incident.
Daraa 24 website published a report on 13/11/2024, in which it explained that the Daraa Criminal Court had ordered death by execution of “the perpetrators of the Khirbet Ghazala crime that resulted in the killing of the young man Muhammad Ziad al-Hajj Ali on 8/11/2024,” wife of Hajj Ali and Ammar al-Asaad, according to investigations by the Criminal Security Branch in Daraa, as the report stated.
Ammar Badi al-Assad is the cousin of the ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and he had won the recent Syrian People’s Assembly elections for Latakia Governorate from the Baath Party.
There has been no official news about the execution of Ammar Badi’ al-Assad.
Through searching the official accounts of the media operations room of the Syrian opposition factions, Kashif’s team did not find any mention of the announcement of the execution of Ammar al-Assad.
The opposition factions announced on Wednesday 27/11/2024 the start of a military operation called “Deterrence of Aggression.” On Sunday 8/12/2024, the opposition announced in a statement broadcast on state television the liberation of Damascus and the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s 24-year rule. The opposition added that all detainees had been released.
