The Suwayda 24 network (a local network concerned with news from As-Suwayda, southern Syria) reported that a Syrian-American detainee in the Syrian regime’s prisons from the province’s sons was announced dead.

The network said today, Wednesday, May 29, that a source in al-Matni’s family stated that the family announced the death of Jamal Shaheen al-Matni, who had been detained by the regime’s security apparatus for more than two years.

The death announcement came after the family received confirmed information, with the intention of holding absentee prayers tomorrow, Thursday, as the authorities did not hand over his body.

Jamal Shaheen al-Matni, an elderly man in his seventies, was kidnapped in July 2021 by an armed militia affiliated with Military Intelligence before being handed over to the Intelligence branch in Damascus.

The family made significant efforts to locate the detainee but did not even learn of the charges against him from the regime’s security forces, losing track of him when he was in the Saydnaya prison.

Jamal Shaheen al-Matni, a Syrian-American national, was kidnapped shortly after arriving in Syria for a vacation, according to Suwayda 24, which indicated that al-Matni’s family contacted American authorities about the incident but received only promises to follow up on the case.

In less than two weeks

This death announcement comes less than two weeks after the death of American physician Majd Kam Almaz in the Syrian regime’s prisons, seven years after disappearing in Damascus, as reported by the Associated Press based on detailed intelligence obtained by his daughter Mariam following meetings with eight senior American officials.

Officials informed her that the accuracy of the information about her father’s death was nine out of ten. Mariam said she asked if Washington had succeeded in reclaiming other detained Americans, to which the answer was negative.

On May 24, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul confirmed continuing efforts to hold the Syrian regime accountable for the death of Dr. Majd Kam Almaz in its prisons.

McCaul said in a statement on his official website that Majd Kam Almaz, an American humanitarian and psychologist, died after being unlawfully detained by the Assad regime in Syria, adding, “This week, we discovered that Majd Kam Almaz, a Texas citizen wrongfully detained in Syria in 2017, died while held hostage by the Assad regime.”

He continued, “Majd’s family tirelessly fought for his release, and tragically, the Assad regime stole the future of the Kam Almaz family together,” emphasizing that the Congress (comprising the Senate and House of Representatives), will never stop working to hold his captors accountable.

Demanding condemnation

On May 18, American officials demanded that President Joe Biden condemn the death of Dr. Majd Kam Almaz in the Syrian regime’s prisons and to open an investigation into the case. Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, Joe Wilson, called for a criminal investigation into the kidnapping and forced killing of Almaz after his detention since 2017 at a regime checkpoint near Damascus.

Wilson directed his statement to Biden, saying, “We need a public condemnation of Dr. Kam Almaz’s murder,” adding that the Justice Department ‌should begin a criminal investigation, expressing regret over another American’s death at the hands of the Syrian regime.

Majd Kam Almaz disappeared in February 2017 at the age of 59 during his trip to Syria to visit a family member. A Syrian-American psychiatrist, he was arrested at a regime checkpoint in Damascus.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) estimates the number of detainees held by the Syrian regime at 136,192 people, out of an estimated total of 156,757 detainees in Syria, according to a network report last March.