Members of the White Helmets carry the body of Mohammad Ghamira, a former White Helmets volunteer who died shortly after his release from jail, before his burial in the village of al-Haffa, Latakia province, Syria, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo)
Mourners carry the coffin of Mohammad Ghamira, a former White Helmets volunteer who died shortly after his release from jail, for burial in the village of al-Haffa, in Latakia province, Syria, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo)
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A Syrian police investigator who slapped a man during an interrogation, despite having been warned that he had hemophilia, will face prosecution, officials said Thursday.
Syria’s interior ministry launched an investigation earlier this week into the death of , and on Thursday announced initial results of the inquiry.
Ghamira, a 29-year-old father of two, was a former volunteer with the civil defense organization, which operated in opposition-held areas before the ouster of former President Bashar Assad in December 2024.
Ghamira died in a hospital in Latakia on Sunday after being released from jail. He had been detained days earlier following a theft allegation, according to Latakia’s internal security command.
Family members said they had told police that Ghamira had hemophilia, a condition affecting the blood’s ability to clot, and warned against hitting him.
Ghamira's death sparked widespread outrage in Syria, where it stirred up dark memories of torture and other abuse in detention centers under the Assad dynasty’s decadeslong rule.
Maj. Gen. Ahmed Latouf, head of the committee formed to investigate Ghamira's death, said Thursday that medical experts found that he had died of complications from a cerebral hemorrhage.
Investigators found that a police interrogator had slapped Ghamira in the neck during interrogation, despite Ghamira having told police personnel about his medical condition, Latouf said.
The interrogator was referred to the public prosecution division, and disciplinary investigations into other police personnel are ongoing, he said.
Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab said in a statement that the investigation results showed the ministry’s “commitment to reaching the truth and holding accountable those proven to have overstepped.”
“We rose up against the former tyrant’s regime in rejection of injustice and impunity, and therefore, building a state of law begins with our ability to hold the wrongdoer accountable, to give restitution to the victim, and not to do injustice to anyone who has not been proven responsible” for wrongdoing, he said.
Rights groups have said that abuses in detention centers have persisted under the country’s new authorities. However, one of the groups, Syrians for Truth and Justice, said that it didn't find evidence of a “single centralized system equivalent in structure and direction to the torture apparatus entrenched by the Assad regime.”
The Associated Press
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