The report covers the period from the start of the March 2011 uprising to December 2015, when Amnesty says between 5,000 and 13,000 people were hanged. Amnesty said the killings were authorized by senior Syrian officials, including deputies of President Bashar Assad. Saydnaya has become the main political prison in Syria since 2011, according to a former official interviewed by Amnesty. They were being taken to the slaughterhouse," Hamid, a former detainee, told Amnesty. The Amnesty report contains similar accounts of abuse.

Source: ABC News February 07, 2017 05:51 UTC