Damascus: The attorney general of the
central Syrian province of Hama said he has resigned to
protest hundreds of killings and thousands of arrests by
President Bashar al-Assad`s regime, after the state agency
said the official was kidnapped.
"I, the attorney general of the province of Hama,
Mohammed Adnan al-Bakkour, announce my resignation from the
regime of Assad and his band," he said in a video posted on
YouTube late yesterday.
He said he took the decision after hundreds of jailed
peaceful demonstrators were killed by the authorities and
buried in mass graves, and 10,000 were arrested arbitrarily.
The United Nations says that more than 2,200 people have
been killed since the beginning of near-daily popular protests
against Assad`s regime in mid-March.
But the official SANA news agency, which reported Monday
that Bakkour had been kidnapped en route to work, quoted
officials as saying his statement had been made under duress.
It quoted Hama governor, Anas Naeem, as saying that
"Bakkour was forced by his captors to give false
information... showing the liquidation of citizens in Hama in
the context of a media campaign against Syria."
It quoted another official as saying that Bakkour`s words
"were extracted under armed threat," calling them "pure lies
fabricated by armed terrorist gangs involved in his
abduction."
SANA reported Monday that Bakkour had been abducted on
the way to work, together with his driver and bodyguard.
PTI
