Syria: Disappearance Ammar Al-Suttof since 1993

On 9 June 2009 Alkarama presented a communication to the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) asking it to intercede with the Syrian authorities so that they finally update his family after 16 years without news of his whereabouts.

Mr Ammar Al-Suttof was born in 1975 and completed his nursing training course in Hama in Syria and lived in Lebanon where he pursued another course while working in the same building. He was living at his workplace in Beirut.

On 14 October 1993, when he was in his room, security forces identified as agents of Syrian Intelligence Services entered his home and kidnapped him. Since then he has not reappeared.

His family and friends have taken all possible steps to locate him; they contacted the Syrian and Lebanese authorities without success. Their attempts, with the intelligence services, the Lebanese police, as well as the headquarters of the Syrian intelligence services in Anjar, were all unsuccessful.

Approximately a year and a half ago, the father of Ammar Al-Suttof contacted the National Committee of missing Syrians in Lebanon, located in Anjar. The members of the institution did not seem interested in the issue. However, they have promised to contact him. Mr Al-Suttof, who left them information about his son, has not received any news from them since.

We recall that the Syria ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 21 April 1969 and the Convention Against Torture on 19 August 2004. Syria's periodic report Syrian will be considered by the Committee Against Torture during its 44th session to be held from 26 April to 14 May 2010.