Mazen al-Hamada was 'lured' back to Syria by spy working for Assad's secret service
A Syrian spy posing as a refugee in the Netherlands lured prominent anti-government activist Mazen al-Hamada into Syria, resulting in his arrest and killing in Damascus, a Dutch investigation has found.
The report on Dutch website Alex Nieuws revealed that a Syrian intelligence contractor known as Majed A was paid around €800,000 over three years for his work for the Mukhabarat, the secret service of ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s government.
The spy, who ran a furniture store in Eindhoven as part of his cover, was paid through a business account via four companies in the Netherlands between 2019 and 2021, according to a Syrian fighter who defected from a paramilitary group loyal to Assad.
Ahmed al-Ashqar, a whistleblower and fierce critic of Assad from Hama, was in touch with the defected officer, who had reportedly infiltrated Syrian intelligence networks to reveal that Majed A was a security agent who had been rejected because he had a criminal record.
“But Majed wanted to prove that he was capable of working for the Mukhabarat,” Ashqar told Alex Nieuws. He seized the opportunity to collaborate with Mohammad Samouri, the head of Syrian intelligence in London and a former vice-consul at the embassy there.
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Majed undertook the mission of luring escaped opponents of the Assad government back to Syria with the help of Samouri, promising that they wouldn’t be harmed if they returned.
Luring refugees back to Syria
In 2020, the Assad government started calling refugees back into the country, promising reconciliation. Reports, however, showed that those who returned had been arrested, disappeared or killed after being tortured.
Many Syrians reportedly refused Majed A’s advances, fearing death, but some believed his offer was real. Among them was Hamada.
The activist was a leading voice against the Assad government and spent years abroad recounting the horrors he endured in Sednaya prison. Detained for over 18 months after attempting to smuggle baby formula into a besieged suburb of Damascus in 2012, he publicly recounted the physical, psychological and sexual abuse he faced during his first imprisonment.
He was arrested again immediately upon his return to Syria in 2020 and kept in the country’s notorious Sednaya prison. He was found dead in a military hospital morgue near Damascus in December 2024 after the collapse of the Assad government.
Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF) organisation, which tracks disappearances in Syria, said that Syrian intelligence told Hamada a series of lies, including that “he could go back home and negotiate the release of prisoners from Deir Ezzor”.
“Mazen was very much in a bad psychological state. They exploited his mental state and his trauma. In no time, they gave him a new passport,” Moustafa told Middle East Eye.
“Despite the best efforts of us, friends and family, Mazen was booked a flight by the regime from Berlin to Beirut, and from Beirut to Damascus. There was a lady from the embassy who went with him. His last call was with our team from SETF and his nephew from the airport,” he said.
The sister of the activist, Lamya al-Hamada, told a NOS reporter in Syria that the intelligence services threatened Hamada, saying his sisters would be arrested.
“And Mazen knew what the regime did to women,” Lamya said, referring to the sexual abuse faced by women in Syria’s prisons.
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