Assad Intelligence killed veteran actor Khaled Taja: former prisoner

(Translation by Yusra Ahmed)

A former prisoner at the Syrian intelligence spoke about the unbelievable practices of the regime to suppress and torture prisoner, confirming thousands of testimonies of former prisoners and Caesar’s, the defected photographer at the Syrian regime, evidences and thousands of photos of prisoners died under torture.

The former prisoner who spoke to Zaman al-Wasl on condition of anonymity said that he was arrested on  August 31, 2011, because of his aid and relief activity, then he was transferred to the “old branch” of the air-forces intelligence. “I have seen crimes cannot be imagined” 

He told Zaman al-Wasl about regime’s plans to sneak from the Arab Observers’ plans to free prisoners. “toward the end of 2011, we were told by new prisoners that Arab Observers Committee was due to visit Syria to help in freeing prisoners, to escape from that, the regime kept taking us out of the prison daily via buses from 8:00 am till 10:00 pm over 10 days period, we used to be 65 prisoners in a bus.”

Another incident about the regime’s attempts to escape from promises to free prisoners was when they were put in a basement form hours because the Arab Observers Committee wanted to do an urgent visit to prison. “There I met two old prisoner with long beard, I was shocked to know that they were not aware that Hafiz al-Assad had died and Bashar has become a president.”

Afterward, the former prisoner said that jailers were very angry to notice that he had spoken with those old prisoners, and he was pulled and taken away from them and tortured to know if he told them anything or they had given him any information about their names or given him any letter to send to people outside.

The 44-year-old former prisoner emotionally said that he cannot forget the threat he had received from a Major in prison to torture him like Hamza al-Khatib and cut his penis like what he had to Hamza. 

Other crimes the former prisoner mentioned were committed in 601 military hospital as many prisoners were transferred there to treat their diseases, wounds, and sores resulted from torture. He mentioned that a member called Salah Jindib used to enjoy torturing patients of prisoners till death, moreover, a nurse with Tartus’s accent many times hit patients with her high-heel shoes on their fronts till making deep holes on them. 

The former prisoner confirmed that he had seen many bodies in the hospital square with numbers on them, and witnessed many occasions when guards put dead bodies in bags and took them away.

The prisoner who was released on-bail after being accused of terrorism mentioned that he saw Khaled Taja, the well known over seventy years old Syrian actor detained in the same prison, he confirmed that Taja was cruelly tortured and once he saw him hanged from his hands when we were in our way to the bathrooms. He mentioned that he had not believed that Taja was in the same prison till he saw him in his own eyes. 

Taja was tortured and humiliated too much then he was transferred to hospital to be announced dead because of cancer. 

The former prisoner’s story about the death of Khalid Taja is similar to the story of a member of security forces surfaced on YouTube. 

It was circulated that Khalid Taja was arrested because of his support to the revolution, but there was no official confirmation by the regime.