Syria: Hama attorney-general announces resignation on YouTube

Damascus, 1 Sept. (AKI) - The attorney-general of the Syrian city of Hama used online video-positing site YouTube to announce his resignation in protest of the government's violent crackdown on protests.

"I, Judge Adnan Mohammad al-Bakkour, Hama province Attorney-General, declare that I have resigned in protest of the savage regime's practices against peaceful demonstrators," Bakkour said.

The expulsion of independent foreign media from Syria makes it difficult to confirm news or events, but if confirmed Bakkour's resignation would be the first high-profile resignation from president Bashar al-Assad government since protests broke out in March.

More than 2,000 people have been killed during the uprising the began in March and thousands of others arrested, according to media reports and human rights groups.

Hama is a city of 800,000 where tens-of-thousands of people died in 1982 when Assad's late father and predecessor crushed the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement.

State-controlled media on Monday reported that Bakkour had been abducted on his way to work.

"What Syrian television is broadcasting about me being kidnapped by armed groups is totally false. I am in the protection of rebel inhabitants and in good health, today, Wednesday, 31 August. I will give live statements once I leave Syria soon," he said.

He accused Syrian forces of killing 72 arrested protesters in the Hama city jail during the lead up to a 31 July military offensive. Reports on 1 August put the deathtoll from the assault at 140. Bakkour put the number of victims - excluding those killed in jail - at 420, many of whom were buried in mass graves in a park.

In a report on Wednesday, human rights group Amnesty International said it believed 88 people arrested by Syrian authorities during the five month uprising had been killed, mostly after suffering torture.

"This is the truth about what has happened and what is happening in Hama. 'Do not think God is ignoring the deeds of the oppressors'," he said,