Shafaq News– Damascus/ Baghdad

Syrian authorities brought back a Syrian national from Iraq after Iraqi officials overturned a death sentence following security and diplomatic coordination, Shafaq News correspondent in Syria reported on Tuesday.

The sentence had earlier been reduced from death to one year in prison in earlier this month.

The young man, Mohammed Suleiman Ahmed Hassan, from the city of Homs, had left Syria three years ago to work in Iraq’s Najaf province, where he was employed at a potato chips factory. Iraqi security forces later arrested him and his brother during a raid, releasing the latter while keeping Hassan in detention.

A leaked document in Iraq later indicated that Hassan received a death sentence by hanging on terrorism-related charges, triggering protests in his hometown and prompting his family to demand his release. Hassan’s family denied the charges in statements to Shafaq News on October 28, 2025, claiming that “the allegations were unfounded and he confessed under torture.”

Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council issued a clarification on October 28, 2025, rejecting claims that authorities convicted Hassan for posting a video praising Syria’s current president or for possessing content linked to the “Free Syrian Army” on his phone. The council clarified that it based the ruling on his admission to glorifying former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and inciting the killing of Iraqi army and Popular Mobilization Forces personnel through social media posts and videos, in addition to burning an image of Imam Ali to provoke sectarian unrest, indicating that the verdict was not final and remained subject to appeal before Iraq’s Federal Court of Cassation.