Moment TV crew discovers Syrian prisoner who didn’t realise Assad had been toppled as he says ‘oh God, there’s light’
THIS is the incredible moment TV crew find a Syrian prisoner who didn’t know tyrant Assad had been overthrown.
Thousands of freed prisoners returned to their families over the weekend after Assad’s regime crumbled – but many are still said to be hidden inside secret underground cells.
Ordinary Syrians continued to celebrate the end of the rule of Bashar al-Assad, whose family’s 53-year dynasty was brought down in a 12-day offensive.
Reporter at CNN Clarissa Ward was touring one of Assad’s infamous prisons on the hunt for an American journalist.
In the footage, her team suddenly stumbles upon a cell that’s still locked up.
The lock gets shot open before Ward and a Syrian rebel enter the cell – with Ward pointing out a blanket that had moved.
She asks if anyone was there, to which a terrified man sits up with his arms raised.
He’s heard pleading with the team: “I’m a civilian. I’m a civilian.”
Once he realises he’s not in any danger, the prisoner tells Clarissa that he had been cruelly held in a cell without windows for three months.
He is seen clutching her arm with both hands for support as he is taken out of the prison, into the daylight.
As he is brought outside, the freed prisoner looks up at the sky, takes deep breaths and exclaims: “Oh God, there is light.”
The grateful man kisses both the reporter and the rebel she was accompanied with as they sit him down.
He asks Clarissa to stay with him, to which he then begins sharing his story.
The prisoner said: “For three months, I didn’t know anything about my family.
“I didn’t hear anything about my children.”
The rebel then looks to reassure the visibly scarred prisoner, telling him that there is “no more army, no more prisons, no more checkpoints” before insisting “Syria is free”.
Still blown away by the news he was hearing, the prisoner kisses the rebel again and says how twisted officers from Assad’s intelligence service took him from his home to interrogate him about his phone.
He explained: “They brought me here to Damascus, they asked me about names of terrorists.”
The freed prisoner goes on to describe how he was hit as an inmate, which appears to be the norm at Assad’s hellhole prisons.
As a paramedic shows up, the man appears to fully register his freedom, to which he begins to shake and looks close to crying.
A man tries to reassure him by saying “everything is okay” and that “the Red Crescent is coming to help you”.
He added: “You are safe, don’t be afraid anymore. Everything you are afraid of is gone.”
The freed prisoner looks to be scared again as he is led inside a vehicle, but he explained: “Every car I got into, they blindfolded me.”
Thousands of freed prisoners returned to their families over the weekend after Assad’s regime crumbled – but many are still said to be hidden inside secret underground cells.
Haunting images show massive piles of clothes and shoes hidden away in a secret compartment of the notorious Sednaya prison.
And horrific footage captures the moment rebels find piles of dead bodies in the dungeons of the hellhole site who had been tortured to death.
The bodies were taken to Al-Mujtahid Hospital as teams carried out an investigation into the secret areas of the prison.
Thousands of prisoners were released when Islamist rebels led by Hayat al Tahir al-Sham (HTS) captured key cities in the country.
But now the years of abuse, torture and death that inmates had to endure in the Syrian prisons are being exposed.
One of the biggest rebel operations after overthrowing Assad saw them liberate the harrowing Sednaya Military Prison in the neighbouring city – nicknamed the Human Slaughterhouse.
ASSAD’S DENIAL
The overthrown dictator Assad previously denied killing thousands of detainees at Sednaya.
He also denied using a secret crematorium to dispose of their remains in 2017.
Despite the denial, so-called “Caesar” files, which was a collection of over 55,000 photographs, was smuggled out of Syria in 2013 by a former military police photographer.
These images documented unspeakable torture and deaths of over 11,000 prisoners in Syrian government custody between March 2011 and August 2013.
RAPE, TORTURE AND DEATH
Some held at the horrific prison of Sednaya say they were raped, and in some cases, forced to rape other inmates.
A regular form of punishment was some kind of torture and severe beatings from guards, it’s claimed, which led to individuals suffering life-changing damage like disabilities or death.
Floors of cells were coated in blood and pus from tortured prisoners, according to a 2017 Amnesty report, with the bodies of dead prisoners collected like rubbish at 9am each morning by guards.
Detainees were also forced to follow horrific rules as they were forced as they were deprived the basic necessities of food, water and medicine.
When food would be delivered it would often be cruelly scattered across cell floors by guards with a mixture of blood and dirt.
A human iron press was even discovered that was allegedly used to crush prisoners to death in Sednaya – unveiled in videos shared by rebels as they liberated prisoners.
They also found dozens of red rope nooses used for mass hangings in an execution room.
Other disturbing accounts say the mass hangings occurred once or twice a week on a Monday and Wednesday – chillingly in the middle of the night.
Human Rights Watch conducted over 200 interviews of detainees who said they were all tortured.
One 31-year-old man, who was detained in the Idlib area in June 2012, says he was made to undress and tortured using various heinous techniques.
He said: “‘They started squeezing my fingers with pliers. They put staples in my fingers, chest and ears.
“I was only allowed to take them out if I spoke. The staples in the ears were the most painful.
“They used two wires hooked up to a car battery to give me electric shocks. They used electric stun-guns on my genitals twice.
“I thought I would never see my family again. They tortured me like this three times over three days.”
The unbelievable practices, which human rights groups say amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, were authorised at the highest level of the Syrian government under Assad.
What is Sednaya Prison?
By Annabel Bate, Foreign News Reporter
SEDNAYA Prison – otherwise known as the Human Slaughterhouse – was a military prison near Damascus, Syria.
Operated by the government of Syrian Arab Republic, the hellhole prison was used to hold thousands of inmates that were civilian detainees, anti-government rebels and political prisoners.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that an overwhelming 30,000 detainees were horrifically executed under the Assad regime in Sednaya.
Guards would use torture as a killing technique, as well as have mass executions.
Some held at the horrific prison of Sednaya say they were raped, and in some cases, forced to rape other inmates.
A regular form of punishment was some kind of torture and sever beatings from guards, it’s claimed, which led to individuals suffering life-changing damage like disabilities or death.
Floors of cells were coated in blood and pus from tortured prisoners, according to a 2017 Amnesty report, with the bodies of dead prisoners collected like rubbish at 9am each morning by guards.
Detainees were also forced to follow horrific rules as they were forced as they were deprived the basic necessities of food, water and medicine.
When food would be delivered it would often be cruelly scattered across cell floors by guards with a mixture of blood and dirt.
Other disturbing accounts say the mass hangings occurred once or twice a week on a Monday and Wednesday – chillingly in the middle of the night.
The unbelievable practices, which human rights groups say amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, were authorised at the highest level of the Syrian government under Assad.