Algeria’s Emir Abdelkader National Foundation yesterday confirmed the death of Sheikh Khaldoun Al-Hasani Al-Jazairi in Syria’s notorious Sednaya prison by the ousted regime of President Bashar Al-Assad.
“The death of Sheikh Khaldoun Al-Hasani Al-Jazairi, a family member of Emir Abdelkader Al-Jazairi, has been confirmed inside Syria’s notorious Sednaya prison,” foundation spokesperson, Asia Zahra Boutaleb, said, adding that prison archives revealed that Sheikh Khaldoun was arrested in 2012 and was killed in 2015.
Boutaleb added that Sheikh Khaldoun was “a dentist, a scholar, and a Maliki jurist who had qualified to issue fatwas in the doctrine of Imam Malik.”
He was also “a proficient reciter of the Holy Quran, as well as a researcher in history and an author.”
The late Sheikh Khaldoun Al-Hasani was known for his opposition to the Syrian regime as well as criticism of corruption and injustice. He was banned from preaching and teaching and was arrested for the first time in 2008.
Following his second arrest in 2012, Syrian authorities took him from his home in Damascus to an unknown location. He was sentenced to death by a military court on charges of opposing the regime.
Despite attempts by his family and human rights organisations to save him, documents confirm his execution in Sednaya prison in 2015.
Sheikh Khaldoun was born in Damascus in 1970.
His grandfather, Emir Abdelkader Al-Jazairi, was the founder of the modern Algerian state, and had a close relationship with Syria, where he settled in 1855 after being exiled from Algeria by the French colonial authorities. He became an influential figure in Syrian society, and is known for his humanitarian role in protecting Christians during the 1860 riot in Damascus.
He died in Damascus and was buried there before his remains were transferred to Algeria in 1966.
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