Of all of the horrors Mohammed Ammar Hamami remembers from his time within the Assad regime’s infamous Sednaya jail, essentially the most vivid is the clanging of metallic execution tables being moved round on the ground beneath.
About as soon as each 40 days, jail guards would drag the tables away from below the ft of condemned males. Nooses round their necks and arms tied behind their backs, they’d die by hanging. Many of the our bodies have been burned in Sednaya’s crematorium.
“That is the noise we used to listen to,” the 31-year-old stated, selecting up the sting of one of many tables and letting the smash of metallic on metallic echo across the massive room. “Once we hear this noise, it means they’re executing individuals … Think about sitting upstairs and understanding prisoners are being executed downstairs.”
Hamami was free of Sednaya after 5 hellish years on 8 December, when Syria’s longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad fled the nation within the face of a lightning-fast Islamist insurgent offensive. Together with the 20 different males held in his soiled, darkish and unfurnished cell, he heard shouting within the hall earlier than collapsing in astonishment when his father’s face appeared within the cell door’s small window.
Every week later, the mechanic needed to return to Sednaya, on the outskirts of Damascus, to retrieve garments left behind within the chaos – but in addition, he stated, to attempt to perceive that what he had lived by way of in what he known as “the killing machine” was actual. On launch, he was very skinny after experiencing problems from diabetes which was not handled correctly throughout his imprisonment. He’s lacking tooth from beatings and remains to be affected by three damaged ribs.
“I needed to revisualise the life we lived right here,” Hamami stated. “After I went out and breathed contemporary air, now I can inform the distinction … We have been the dwelling useless.
“It was like I used to be reborn. At the moment I’m not 31, I’m seven days outdated,” he stated.
Hamami was a fighter below the banner of the Free Syrian Military, which mounted an armed opposition to the regime after a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy Arab spring protests. He was arrested in 2019 and sentenced to loss of life. His impoverished household from the Damascus suburb of Ghouta paid £63,000 in bribes to numerous branches of the safety equipment to get his sentence diminished to twenty years.
They’re among the many luckier ones. Many households are nonetheless trying to find any hint of Syria’s estimated 100,000 lacking individuals, most of whom have been disappeared into the regime’s huge community of torture and detention centres. Every week after the Guardian witnessed the extraordinary second Sednaya’s doorways have been flung open, family members have been nonetheless digging up flooring within the hope of discovering secret cells and brushing by way of ledgers and information strewn about trashed workplaces.
“Till immediately, they didn’t permit us to go to or inform us the place he’s, and we needed to pay plenty of bribes. Once we checked a month in the past, by way of one other bribe, we have been informed he was right here and he was tremendous,” stated a girl on the lookout for her son, who gave her title as Umm Ali.
“When it was liberated, we couldn’t discover anyone. Even when they’re useless, we would like our kids … Anyone internet hosting these criminals, we would like them again right here,” she stated.
After the collapse of a long time of brutal dynastic rule, the complete extent of the crimes Assad and his father, Hafez, dedicated towards their very own individuals – chemical assaults, barrel bombs, compelled conscription, demographic engineering – are actually identified to the world. Even so, it’s tough to grasp the cruelty prisoners endured in Sednaya, essentially the most feared of all of the regime’s detention centres.
When Hamami arrived on the jail’s “purple wing” in 2019, which housed individuals accused of safety crimes, he was positioned downstairs, within the worst cellblock. For the primary 4 days, he was not allowed meals; for the following 4, no water.
The odor from the damp, filthy, 1 sq metre cells – which typically held two males at a time – was overpowering. An orange jumpsuit used for executions lay on the ground; brown water dripped from a leaking pipe. The temperature in the course of the Guardian’s go to was 8C.
Hamami was thrown again into the block a number of instances throughout his incarceration – typically for offences similar to making a tasbih, a string of prayer beads, from date stones.
“I’ve by no means seen this place with my eyes earlier than. I knew it by contact,” Hamami stated, exploring with the sunshine from his cellphone. In a single cell, a reputation had been scratched on the wall, together with a date. “That was my pal from Aleppo,” he stated. “I didn’t know what occurred to him … it seems he was executed.”
After eight days, Hamami was taken upstairs, bare. He was instructed to face dealing with the wall earlier than a few dozen guards lashed his again about 100 instances, he estimates. The partitions of the reception space are lined in black marks, which Hamami stated have been from whips and belts.
Cell 4, down the corridor, would turn out to be his dwelling for the following 5 years: a 5 metre by 5 metre room, with no mild, no furnishings, and a rudimentary rest room, shared with about 20 different males. Some had fought within the battle, like him; a couple of have been Alawites, a sect that historically supported the federal government.
On Hamami’s return go to, the ground of cell 4 was lined in damp blankets and garments. His outdated spot was within the left-hand nook closest to the door, the place he retrieved two purple hoodies to take dwelling. He looked for however gave up on discovering a home made stitching package he had hidden contained in the seam of a blanket.
On account of the cash Hamami’s household paid to scale back his sentence, as soon as each few months, his dad and mom, spouse and two youngsters have been allowed to go to, separated by a couple of metres by metallic cages within the visiting room. They introduced him drugs, meals, and garments, though the guards helped themselves first to something that got here by way of the jail’s doorways, he stated.
Adjusting to leaving Sednaya has been tough, Hamami stated; he had not instantly recognised his personal youngsters ready for him within the jail grounds. “My children ran to me, and I opened my arms, then closed them,” he stated. Dazed by the morning’s occasions, at first he wasn’t even certain they have been actual, he stated.
A brand new Syria, liberated from greater than 50 years of Assad rule and 13 of civil battle, remains to be an awesome prospect. Clashes within the coastal province of Tartous this week between Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group that now controls the nation, and remnants of the Assad regime, may very well be an indication of but extra harmful instances to come back.
“Us prisoners used to speak and say: ‘Even when we’re launched whereas the regime remains to be in energy, we might nonetheless stay in terror.’ The very first thing I thought of if I bought out was, take my household, go away the nation,” Hamami stated.
“However now, this nation is ours, and we are going to rebuild it, and stay a brand new life.”
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