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A Syria war monitor said Thursday the country's new authorities had arrested a military justice official under the ousted government of President Bashar al-Assad who issued death sentences for people held in the notorious Sednaya prison.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Mohammed Kanjo Hassan was arrested in the coastal Tartus province, a stronghold of Assad's clan, along with 20 members of his entourage.

Under the deposed government, Kanjo Hassan issued, according to the Observatory, "thousands" of sentences, including death sentences, for people held in Sednaya.

Located near Damascus, the Sednaya complex was the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances and epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad's opponents.

Kanjo Hassan headed Syria's military field court from 2011 to 2014, the first three years of the war that began with Assad's crackdown on Arab Spring-inspired democracy protests, according to Diab Serriya, co-founder of the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Sednaya Prison.

He was later promoted to chief of military justice nationwide, Serriya said, adding that he sentenced "thousands of people" to death, often in "trials that lasted minutes".

Serriya's group estimates that Kanjo Hassan made $150 million from bribes paid by relatives of detainees desperate for information on their loved ones.

Syria's exiled National Coalition of opposition forces welcomed the arrest, describing it as an "important step on the path to justice and the prosecution of those who committed crimes against the Syrian people".

The Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Sednaya Prison estimates that 30,000 people were taken into detention in the facility since 2011, while only around 6,000 have been released.

The others remain missing.

The fate of tens of thousands of prisoners and missing people is one of the most harrowing legacies of the war.

International organisations have repeatedly called for establishing mechanisms for justice and accountability in Syria.