The Syrian Human Rights Committee (SHRC) has received complaints from the Maltese National Josephine al-Dgheim, who lives in Valetta in Malta. She says that her husband, Ismail al-Dgheim left his home in Malta on Friday 29/12/2006 to celebrate Eid al-Adha with his family in Idlib, Syria. He phoned her when he was in Cyprus, informing her that he had found a plane from the Emirates Airlines that would take him to Damascus International Airport. On Saturday 30/12/2006 he phoned her once again on his mobile phone and told her that he had been stopped by the Syrian Intelligence in Damascus Airport. His wife learnt that his family had been waiting for him in the airport yet when they found out he had been arrested they contacted the Maltese Ambassador (who is of Syrian origin), who refused to help them despite the fact that Hussein Dgheim has been a Maltese national for 15 years. Until this moment, Hussein is still detained by the Syrian Intelligence.

Close sources have informed SHRC that the citizen Hussein Ismail Dgheim was born in 1962. He is from Jarjanaz (Idlib), where he studied his primary and preparatory education. Whilst he was in Secondary School he joined the Baath Party, which is the ruling party in Syria. In April 1982, the Military Security detained his brother Radwan (born in 1960), who had been studying Shariah then. Radwan along with others were taken to the Military Interrogation Centre in Damascus, and from there taken to Tadmur Prison.

Thereafter, Radwan's brother Hussein and his father Ismail Dgheim were imprisoned for a period of time in the Military Intelligence Centre in Idlib simply for their relation to Radwan. If Hussein's other brother Yahya Ismail Dgheim was in the country he would surely have also been arrested. However, he wasn't in the country at the time, and hasn't returned to Syria since then.

In the summer of 1988 Radwan Ismail Dgheim was killed under torture in Tadmur Prison. His corpse was returned to his family in Tadmur, and his father then took the corpse back to Jarjanaz where he buried his son under the supervision of the Syrian Intelligence.

After Radwan's death, his brother Hussein left the country in order to make a living. He worked in Libya for a while then left for Malta in 1988, where he married Miss Josephine who begot him three girls, and acquired the Maltese Nationality. He has been living in Malta since then.

In 2006, during a phone call between Hussein and his family in Syria, they reassured him, informing him that according to some members of the Baath Party that were in contact with the Syrian Security, he could safely return to Syria.

Hussein Ismail Dgheim returned to Syria on the basis of these reassurances, but was immediately arrested upon arriving at Damascus International Airport. He spent the festive occasion of Eid in detention, was unable to see his family, and till now remains detained. Informed sources have also reported that the money he was carrying with him was gradually stolen from him by a number of Intelligence officers who bribed him by telling him they would lessen the torture inflicted upon him.

SHRC condemns these arbitrary and unjust arrests that are being used to target citizens who return to their country. SHRC also condemns torture and other methods of  blackmail used in detention centres, and calls upon the Syrian Authorities to release Hussein Dgheim and return all amounts stolen, so that he is able to return to his wife and girls whose only source of income is their father.

Syrian Human Rights Committee
2/2/2007