Accounts on social media circulated a statement attributed to Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab, with those sharing it claiming that he had said the deaths of seventy-nine detainees was not a large number compared with the duration of the government's rule, in response to a report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claiming that this number of detainees had died in Syrian government prisons since the fall of the former regime.
The fact-checking team searched the official sources of the Syrian Ministry of Interior as well as the personal accounts of the Interior Minister, and reviewed the archives of official and local media outlets, but found no such statement by Interior Minister Anas Khattab.
Why is this claim false?
Fabricated statements: The claim rested on attributing to the Interior Minister a phrase that exists in no official or media source, drawing on the sensitivity of the detainees file in order to distort the ministry's position and inflame public opinion.
