The Arrested Person in the Video is Neither the Director of Sednaya Prison nor Talal Makhlouf… So Who Is He?

The Claim

On Sunday, December 15, social media accounts shared a video depicting the arrest of a person by an armed group. Some posts claimed the individual was the Director of Sednaya Prison near Damascus, while others identified him as Talal Makhlouf, a former general in the regime's forces and the commander of the Republican Guard.

The widely circulated video shows a crowd of people surrounding a vehicle with armed fighters on top. The detained individual is assaulted with punches and kicks while being accused of collaborating with security forces.
Several accounts contributed to spreading this claim, with some examples listed in the “Sources of the Claim” section at the end of the article. The video has garnered hundreds of thousands of views.

Refute the claim

Verify-sy team investigated the claim that the person in the video was either "former regime General Talal Makhlouf" or "the Director of Sednaya Prison." The claims were found to be false.

Verify-sy reached out to a human rights activist in Jableh, Latakia province—who requested anonymity—to verify the video, as the city was mentioned in connection with the incident. The source confirmed that the individual in the video is Ibrahim Al-Farran and not "the Director of Sednaya Prison" or "Talal Makhlouf."

The source added that Al-Farran, nicknamed "Jimmy," was among the first to volunteer to work alongside the former regime’s security forces. He is accused by activists in Jableh of participating in the infamous raid on the village of Al-Bayda in Baniyas countryside on April 12, 2011.

In contrast, Al-Farran's brother, Ismail, was an anti-regime activist who participated in protests and was previously detained for ten years.

For further information, the Verify-sy team searched for Ibrahim Al-Farran online and found his name listed among others in an article published by Zaman Al-Wasl in 2015 titled “What Do You Know About Jimmy? Photos and Names of a New Batch of Jableh Mercenaries.”

Who is Talal Makhlouf?

Talal Makhlouf was appointed as the commander of the Republican Guard in early January 2016. Under his leadership, the Republican Guard played a significant role in the massacres committed in eastern Aleppo.

Due to his criminal record, Talal Makhlouf was named in a December 15, 2011 report by Human Rights Watch. He was also listed in Switzerland's sanctions against 19 military and civilian figures in late 2011.

Additionally, Makhlouf has been subject to sanctions by the European Union, the British government (since 2015), and the U.S. Treasury (since early 2017) for his involvement in crimes against civilians.

Background

Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria on December 8, various videos have surfaced on social media documenting arrests and, in some cases, executions of senior officers from the former regime or Assad's relatives. Verify-sy has verified several of these videos.

Note: This text was translated using AI. The original content is in Arabic.