Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are still searching for their relatives, arbitrarily arrested by the Assad regime and taken to the sinister prisons of the secret services. What happened there - ARD tells in a report from Damascus.
At the end of December, a few days after the fall of Assad, photos of people who disappeared without a trace were posted in Damascus. Next to the photo of a man is written his name Abdullah Quablan and “Born in Aleppo. Disappeared in 2012 in Damascus”, says the German public media ARD in a report from the Syrian capital Damascus.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are still searching for their relatives, arbitrarily arrested by the regime and taken to the sinister prisons of the secret services. "I hope with all my heart that my mother is still alive and that one day I will see her again," says a woman standing in front of a wall covered with photos of missing people. She has a photo of her mother on her phone. "After learning what the regime did, I ask myself - was my mother tortured like this?".
Hundreds of thousands searching for their loved ones
According to estimates by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), the whereabouts of between 100,000 and 200,000 people in Syria are unknown. Since the "Arab Spring" Since 2011, the secret services have arrested critics and alleged opponents of the government and tortured and killed them in their prisons, ARD recalls.
The cruel methods of torture used by the secret services against civilians were also revealed during a historic court case in Germany - in Koblenz in 2020, for the first time in the world, an associate of the Bashar Assad regime stood trial.
Anwar R. was a colonel in the Syrian secret services and head of interrogations at the Al-Khatib secret services prison in Damascus. In 2022, the Koblenz court sentenced him to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity. The judges considered it proven that, among other things, Anwar R. was an accomplice in 27 murders and is responsible for torturing at least 4,000 prisoners. The sentence is now in effect, the German public-law media outlet reports.
How people were tortured in secret service prisons
ARD reporters were granted access to the secret service prison in Damascus, where Anwar R. was responsible for interrogations. The prison is located on a quiet street in the center of Damascus, and some of the offices on the first floor have burned down. In the basement, there are small, dark cells without windows. If you stretch your arms out, you can reach the ceiling and the walls to the sides, the German public-law media outlet reports.
After the dictator fell, the secret service agents left their offices in a panic. In their haste, they left behind documents revealing the brutality of the regime that used torture. Apparently, they were documented in detail. German reporters found lists of prisoners who were to be killed, as well as photos of disfigured and apparently tortured prisoners before they were killed.
„They picked people up randomly"
Based on the lists, as well as comparing the victims' photos with photos on social media, reporters were able to find many of their relatives. Among them is Abu Khaled al-Maqbal from Damascus, who had been looking for his father for 12 years.
At the time, the father, who was then 62 years old, just wanted to register his car, but he never returned, says Abu Khaled al-Maqbal. „My father did not participate in demonstrations against the regime. Back then, they just picked people up randomly", the son told German journalists. He had hoped until the end that his father was still alive.
However, documents from the secret service prison reveal that the father died shortly after his arrest. However, it is not clear exactly how he died.
There are probably mass graves
Countless folders with information about the kidnapped are stored in the cabinets of Assad's secret prisons. It is also believed that there are mass graves in a number of places in the country where the killed were thrown. “I am not exaggerating when I say that they were treated like animals - maybe even worse”, Mohammad Yaqub al-Mor, Minister of Information in the new Syrian government, told ARD. “Bulldozers dug mass graves in which Syrians were buried mercilessly.”
The German government announced that it would support Syria in uncovering the crimes. “Reconciliation and peaceful coexistence in Syria will only be possible when the grave human rights violations of the past are consistently exposed and punished,”, the Foreign Ministry's plenipotentiary Tobias Lindner told ARD.
Germany is providing financial assistance
The German Foreign Ministry has already earmarked one million euros to help gather evidence of crimes in Syria.
Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has promised a broad amnesty to former soldiers of the Assad regime. However, those who have committed serious crimes - such as massacres or torture of prisoners - are excluded from this. They will be brought to justice in accordance with the principles of the rule of law.