Mazen Isamandar

Position:

Brigadier General (عميد) in the Syrian military, linked to the Medical Services Directorate and burial/logistics operations.

Association:

Syrian Army Medical Services Directorate, working under Major General Dr. Ammar Suleiman, is directly connected to Bashar al-Assad and security branches.
Closely coordinating with intelligence branches handling detainee bodies from security prisons to military hospitals)

Loyalty:

Loyal to the Assad regime.
Acting as an operational officer in the machinery that concealed the death of detainees through the secret mass graves.

Most Notorious Crimes:

Direct supervision of collection, transport, and burial of thousands of detainees’s bodies in mass graves around in Damascus and around Damascus (Najha, al-Qutaifa, and Dumyr) after they died under torture or execution in the security appratus.
Conducting an operation that destroyed evidence of enforced disappearance and mass killings by moving bodies of older mass graves, al-Qutaifa, to new desert sites, al-Durmyr.

Profile

Pre-2011: he worked in the Syrian Arab Army as a doctor officer in the Medical Services Directorate.
Between 2011-2019, according to the witnesses, Mazen Samandar was one of the main officers who:
- received bodies from security branches and military hospitals
- supervised loading them into refrigerated trucks
- and coordinated with burial teams at multiple mass-grave sites around Damascus.
Between 2019-2021, Ismander supervised an operation of large-scale operation to relocate thousands of bodies from a mass grave near al-Qutaifa to the al-Dumayr desert site

Coordinate Massgrave System for Detainees’ bodies
Participation in Enforced Disappearance and Concealment of Evidence.
Cruel treatment and Execution Context
- His role ensured the logical completion of the killing cycle. After the detainees died under torture or execution, his network handled the bodies and erased traces.
- According to Gravedigger, there were horrific scenes where victims were still alive among the bodies in trucks.
- According to the Gravedigger, Ismander at the burial sites gave order to bulldozers to crush them rather than rescue them

no public international arrest warrant or court judgment has been officially issued specifically against Mazen Samandar yet. His name appears in testimonies and investigative reports.
Sanctions:
Not in any of sanction lists

At Large
Russian Forces came and evacuated him to Russia
In 2011 – Colonel working w/ Medical Services next to Tishreen mil hospital
He then became a Brig. General
We think he’s from Jableh
He would personally go to all mass graves
Most likely in Syria on the coast or a neighboring country
Overseeing the military hospitals and the mass graves, summary executions under his command at tishreen
Second to ammar suleiman