BBC
The fall of the Syrian regime was marked by a significant event – rebels liberating inmates from the country’s most infamous prison. A week later, four men share their experiences with the BBC, recounting the joy of their release and the years of horror they endured before that moment.
Warning: This article includes descriptions of torture.
The prisoners fell silent as they heard commotion outside their cell door. A voice called out, asking if anyone was inside, but fear held them back from responding. Years of brutal beatings, rapes, and punishments had taught them to stay quiet. But on this day, the sound of the door opening meant freedom.
As rebels shouted “Allahu Akbar”, the men inside the cell peeked through a small opening in the heavy metal door. Instead of guards, they saw rebels in the prison corridor. “We said ‘We are here. Free us,'” recalls one of the inmates, 30-year-old Qasem Sobhi Al-Qabalani.
When the door was forced open, Qasem ran out barefoot, like the other inmates, not daring to look back. “When they came to start liberating us and shouting ‘all go out, all go out’, I ran out of the prison but I was so terrified to look behind me because I thought they’d put me back,” shares 31-year-old Adnan Ahmed Ghnem.
They were unaware at the time that President Bashar al-Assad had fled the country and his regime had collapsed. But the news eventually reached them. “It was the best day of my life. An unexplainable feeling. Like someone who had just escaped death,” remembers Adnan.
Qasem and Adnan are among four prisoners recently released from Saydnaya prison – a facility known as the “human slaughterhouse” for political prisoners. Their accounts of mistreatment, torture, executions, corruption, and forced confessions align with Amnesty International’s report on the prison’s atrocities.
Established in the early 1980s, Saydnaya has been a key political prison in Syria. Since the 2011 uprising, it has been described as a “death camp”. Prisoners were sent there for alleged ties to the Free Syrian Army, opposition to Assad, or living in anti-regime areas. Confessions were extracted under duress, leading to long sentences or death sentences.
Qasem recounts his arrest in 2016 and subsequent torture at various detention facilities before landing in Saydnaya. “After that door, you are a dead person,” he says, describing the horrors he endured in the prison.
Punishments at Saydnaya were brutal and frequent, with inmates beaten with metal staffs, cables, and electric sticks. Forms of torture included being hung upside down in a barrel of water, being forced into uncomfortable positions, and enduring sexual assaults by guards.
Survivors like Imad Jamal, who suffered a broken back from a guard’s punishment, recall the unbearable cold and inhumane conditions in the prison. Despite the few moments of positivity, such as showers or court appearances, they were always met with punishment.
The release of these men sheds light on the atrocities committed at Saydnaya and calls for justice for the crimes under international law in Syria. Families of missing persons held at the prison continue to seek answers, as the world learns of the horrors that took place within its walls.