Assad's brother has own prison where hundreds hanged, slaughtered: report

(Zaman Al Wasl)- There exists, in a country which Bashar al-Assad decided to turn into a private farm and under the control of an army driven by gangster laws, a prison no less cruel and brutal than dozens of other prisons and detention centers.

Zaman al-Wasl puts in the hands of its readers a special study prepared by a competent military source to uncover this special prison that located near Damascus inside the powerful Fourth Armored Division which led by the Assad’s brother General Maher al-Assad.

This study tries to confirm the existence of such a brutal prison by revealing its location, its size, the shape of its cells, the names of its detainees and its brutal methods of torture.

Because of the authority enjoyed by the Fourth Division which is given to it mainly by the regime’s ruler Assad, and because of the state institutions’ unwillingness to oppose the unlawful activities practiced by the militias and the affiliates of this division, they (the militia) have established a prison of their own, separate from the institutions and courts of the state.

The Fourth Division is linked directly to the security office, headed by Colonel Hussein Marisha who is responsible for the loss of hundreds and maybe thousands of lives. He is assisted in his criminal activities by the renowned felon and delinquent Abu Yoshah.

The source reveals that there is "another criminal, no less brutal to the detainees than Colonel Hussein, who is Lieutenant Colonel Yasser Salhab from the Security Office," He visits the prison from time to time in order to carry out several executions in various criminal and offensive ways.

The Fourth Division prison’s location, as shown on the map, is located in front of to the old officers' club. It is a multi-storey building located entirely underground and that stretches over a large space. In fact, this prison was previously an old headquarters that belonged to the division and is now transformed into the Fourth Division’s private prison.

Our source confirms: “The prison consists of three floors. In the basement, we find the individual cells and the execution hall. On the middle floor are the collective dormitories and on the top floor are the administration offices, prison guards and the rooms in which interrogations and torture are committed.”

Fourth Brigade is not only limited to members of the military as was the case for the military team before the revolution, but it also includes soldiers and civilians from outside the Fourth Division. There are prisoners that spent decades inside this prison.

What is strange is that all military units transfer civilians to the branches of intelligence in accordance with their specialty (according to the duties of the geographical area) which is how the regime normally proceeds, except for the Fourth division in which some detainees have been transferred from intelligence branches, especially air intelligence, to the prison of the division. This procedure is completely unusual and incomprehensible for which only two explanations could be found; the first is that the aim behind the transfer is the liquidation of those detainees inside the prison and the second is holding citizens hostage in order to receive large amounts of money from those belonging to rich families.

The Fourth Division prison is made up of a large number of individual cells located in the basement. These cells are dim, the sun never reaches them; they are ventilated by small fans (a small turbine), the air is pumped into the long corridor linking these cells.

Dozens of people have spent many years there; people whose names are kept strictly confidential by prison officials; they are approached by their numbers instead of names, numbers that have been given to them since their entrance. On the middle floor, you find several collective dormitories also numbered alphabetically.

The source explains that the dormitory named C, as prisoners call it, is composed of two large rooms connected to each other. In this dormitory, the new detainees, which are still under investigation, are received. They are claimed to be subject to the most severe kinds of torture ever known to humanity from its ancient past up to the present day. They are tortured sometimes in order to extract confessions that may not exist, except in the imagination of the interrogator, and sometimes only for the mere gratification of their instinct of torture. Many of the prisoners died in this department.

Our source adds: “This dormitory does not contain toilets or baths, the detainees are therefore taken out twice a day to the toilet that resides outside the dormitory in a very ugly and inhumane way. In the morning, the detainees are ordered to lie down, naked, and then two numbers are called for; those with the concerned numbers should then go together inside the bathroom to discharge in no more than half a minute, sometimes even less. The same procedure is repeated in the evening, where detainees have to step on each other’s bodies and heads in order to reach the bathroom and while returning to their positions. Even though they follow the rules, the crack of the whip still reaches them.

To each ten people is given only one blanket, and that’s how winter becomes an additional factor in the suffering of these detainees. The source points out that the number of detainees in this dormitory fluctuates; it sometimes increases and sometimes decreases. The average number is however about seventy five detainees filling the investigation department.

He adds "After the interrogation of the detainee is completed, they are either transferred to an individual or collective cell, executed, or are transferred to Adra Prison or to another security body. This decision is not taken according to a specific timetable, but rather to the investigator's temperament and the prison administration’s mood.

About 200 to 300 individuals are crammed inside the collective dormitories. Each dormitory has one doorless bathroom and one small laundry. "

According to the source only two meals containing the minimum nutritional value are offered to the prisoners. Breakfast contains half a loaf of bread, and a few pieces of olives or one egg, as for lunch, it contains a dry loaf of bread, generally a little boiled bulgur and sometimes, instead of that is given only one piece of Potatoes.

As for the medical team and the medicines, they are nonexistent, whereas the systematic and brutal torture permanently continues. The cruelest and most mutilating tools of torture are used, up to those with which genitals are extracted.

The source revealed that only 20% of the detainees are referred to the court. Those who are killed by torture are handed over to the hospital (601) in Mezzeh on the grounds that they are "terrorists killed during the confrontations."

According to our source, the number of people killed under torture in the division prison at the beginning of 2011 is estimated at more than 700-900.

Common methods used against detainees include:

1- Getting undressed and remaining completely naked.

2- Going to the toilet in the presence of other people.

3- Deprivation of medical care.

4- Sleep deprivation.

5- Whipping and electro shocks.

6- Hanging.

7- The wheel and the chair.

8- Torture with electric shock.

9- Torture in the genital areas has been extensively used was the cause of the deaths of many detainees.

10- Stabbing and burning with flammable metal machines.

11- Lynching and beating through quadrilateral cables.

In addition to all the torture methods used in the Fourth Division prison, there is another method that’s unique, by which millions of lives were lost, and that distinguishes the fourth brigade prison; the detainees call it: "the invention of the criminal Abu Yosha".

This method mainly depends on the time they have to kill the detainee (whether they have few hours, one day, two days, several days, etc.. )

Crime tools include:

*An empty vessel that opens from one end (similar to the olive oil vessel known by the Syrians being opened on one side only) or a small barrel that is open half a hole from its upper side only.

*An iron bed equipped to hold the detainee above it.

* A hungry cat (starved for two days or more) and sometimes the cat is given food if the intention is to torture him with heat (Assistant Abu Yoshah has several types of cats and perhaps the fiercest of them is the one believed to be a wild cat because of his untamable cruelty)

* A heat source to heat the vessel.

The killing procedures:

Tightly connecting the detainee to the iron bed so as to make it impossible for him to move.

Placing the vessel, in which the cat is placed, in a way that makes its open end directly face the detainee’s body.

The location of the vessel is what determines the duration of the prisoner’s torture before he/she surrenders to death. If for example the vessel is placed near the heart or near the genitals then the victim only holds for few hours before they dies. But if the vessel is placed on the victim’s back or on their stomach then the suffering stretches for one or two days before it kills them.

The hungry wild cat begins to bite on the detainee's flesh until the area starts to bleed.

Occasionally the vessel is heated with a thermal source deliberately in order to force the cat to avoid the heat not finding any exit other than the detainee’s flesh which the cat penetrates with its teeth seeking a way out for itself. This creates a big hemorrhage in the victim’s body which eventually brings their death.