(Writing by Faris al-Rifai; Translation by Yusra Ahmed)
A man from the town of Qatana in the western countryside of Damascus told stories of 7 victims died under torture in Assad’s prisons.
Abo Mohamed al-Qatanani, has recognized 7 bodies from Qatana, the shock was when he mentioned that the body carried number 227 of Caesar’s photos which Zaman al-Wasl published, was for a 57 handicapped man, married and a father of one daughter, called Khaldoon Abdo Shokair. He suffered of difficulties in speaking and deformation in his face and legs which limited his movement, therefore he needed to used a small modified motorcycle to move in Qatana.
Shokair worked in the town’s bakery, he was arrested in 1st October 2012, to die under torture in regime’s prisons, but his death was confirmed in 31st May 2013 when Qatana’s Municipality was informed to collect his belongings, Activist al-Qatanani told Zaman al-Wasl.
Majd al-Taki (Abo Ayman) was the second victim who had a sticker of number 1498 on his front. He was 38 years old, married and had two daughters, according to al-Qatanani.
Abo Ayman was a carpenter, arrested at one of regime’s barriers under accusation of distributing aid. “I know him in person, he was a good and respected man, his death under torture was a shock for us” al-Qatanani said.
The third victim al-Qatanani recognized from Caesar’s photos which Zaman al-Wasl published, was for Adham Dhoha, who had the number 452493 group 227, he was a 26 year old, single and student in dentistry.
Al-Qatanani mentioned that Dhoha was arrested because of medical equipment were found in his field , and his death was announce a month after arresting.
The body of number 128366 group 227 was for Ayham Omran, a 25 year old single Petroleum Engineer, who was in prison before under accusation of humiliating the national feeling and conspiring to overthrow the ruling regime.
About his arresting circumstances, al-Qatanani mentioned that a sergeant in the military security branch in the town of Qatana known as Abo Saeed called Ayham for a matter and arrested him for no clear reason, and his death’s news reached to Qatana, but al-Qatanani was not sure about the photo of his body.
Kassem Bindakji, the fifth victim, known as Abo Yahya, his body had the number 0038400, group 227 of Qaesar’s photos.
Abo Yahya was a 28 year old married man had a son and a daughter, worked in building, he was arrested with many people from his neighborhood, all of them were released except him, after a while his family was informed of his death under torture, according to al-Qatanani.
Two other victims died under torture, Nimer Dhaher, 29 year old single man, was arrested from his house, and Abdel-Razzaq al-Sheikh who was arrested in 2012.
Qatana is a small town in the Western Countryside of Damascus, 20 km away from Damascus. it has hundreds of barriers for security forces, besides many military bases and surrounded with accommodation blocks for military officers.
After the Syrian revolution, many informers for the regime were recruited in the town, to help in observing and arresting wanted people.
Caesar, a nickname for a photographer worked with the Syrian military police to taking pictures of killed detainees, and document the corpuses in only one region in Syria. He worked secretly with a Syrian opposition, as he started making duplicates of his photo evidence in September 2011 and sending them to a relative who fled Syria and was working with human rights groups. After sharing thousands of images, he feared for his safety and was smuggled out of the country in August 2013.
Caesar showed images of 11,000 bodies of detainees were killed within two and a half year period (March 2011-August 2013)
Basing on Caesar’s photos, a report was published on 21st January 2014, formally titled “A Report into the credibility of certain evidence with regard to Torture and Execution of Persons Incarcerated by the current Syrian regime” which reported the systematic killing of more than 11,000 detainees by the Syrian government in only one region during the Syrian War.
Comments About This Article
Please fill the fields below.