Photos show Iraqi detainees disguised in women's clothing, not 'Syrian prison guard who tried to escape'

After the new Syrian authorities arrested the official who issued death sentences to prisoners under ousted president Bashar al-Assad, pictures were shared on social media purporting to show a prison guard who dressed in women's clothes to try to escape arrest and flee to the neighborhood. Lebanon. The images actually show men arrested in Iraq in June 2023 and September 2024.

“The arrest of a guard in the brutal Saydnaya prison, named Ghazwan Mohsen, who pretended to be a woman, tried to escape to Lebanon,” reads part of the Malay language caption of two photos shared on Facebook on January 1, 2025. .

The pictures show a person with a blurred face dressed in women's clothing sitting on a sofa, and another person wearing make-up and covering their hair.

Photos have been shared elsewhere on Facebook here and here, and on Instagram and Telegram with similar claims.

They spread after the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on December 26 that the country's new authorities arrested Mohammed Kanjo Hassan, the military justice chief under ousted president Bashar al-Assad and issued death sentences to detainees in the notorious Saydnaya prison (link saved).

The Saydnaya complex, a site of extrajudicial killings, torture and enforced disappearances, exposed the atrocities committed against Assad's opponents.

The Britain-based Observatory added on December 29 that nearly 300 people — including informers, pro-regime fighters and ex-soldiers — had been arrested in the crackdown on Assad loyalists (link archived).

The images shared on social media, however, show men arrested in Iraq before Assad's ouster on December 8.

Detention in Iraq

A reverse image search on Google found one of the falsely shared images in a news article published by the independent Iraqi news agency Baghdad Today on June 7, 2023 (archived link).

Its Arabic-language headline reads, “Anbar Police Explain Details of Arrest of 'Man Disguised as Woman'”.

The article cites authorities as saying that the man was dressed in women's clothing to head to crowded areas.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the image as it appears in the fake post (left) and in the Baghdad Today news article (right):

A separate image search of the falsely shared second image led to a clip posted to the X account of Al-Sharqiya TV, an Iraqi satellite channel, on September 21, 2024 (archived link).

Its caption read, “Police in Al-Rusafa arrested a man who pretended to be a woman to lure taxi drivers into robbing them, east of Baghdad”. The clip shows a person removing the mask.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the image used in the fake post (left) and the same from X's Al-Sharqiya TV account (right):

Al-Rusafa police also wrote about this case on their Facebook page on September 21, 2024 (link saved).

AFP has refuted some of the misleading allegations that have spread after Assad's ouster here and here.