The Syrian navy intelligence officers who detained Ghazi Mohammed al-Mohammed informed him to overlook his title and who he was.
They took away his papers, he stated, and informed him: “Now you are quantity 3006.”
For 5 and a half months Mohammed languished in one among president Bashar al-Assad’s jails, shedding 40 kilograms (88 kilos), all of the whereas underneath the specter of imminent execution.
Since Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad’s paranoid and brutal authorities one week in the past, quite a few ex-prisoners like Mohammed are shedding mild on the depths of the despair visited upon Syria’s folks over the previous a long time.
Mohammed, an emaciated man propped up on cushions in entrance of the range in Sarmada, close to Aleppo in northwestern Syria, is a shadow of his former self.
The 39-year-old swears he was by no means concerned in politics in Syria, that he’s a easy service provider attempting to make a residing alongside along with his brothers.
He was seized on a short enterprise journey to Damascus, and plunged right into a residing hell.
“The second comes once you lose all hope,” stated Mohammed, his beard and darkish hair intently cropped.
“In direction of the tip I simply needed to die, ready for once they would execute us. I used to be nearly pleased, as it might imply my struggling was over.”
It was the mukhabarat, the all-powerful intelligence henchmen and enforcers of Assad rule, who seized him when he visited the capital.
They took him away, fingers clamped behind his again, together with one among his mates, a health care provider.
“That was 5 and a half months in the past,” Mohammed informed AFP.
He does not know why he was arrested, however thinks it could have been as a result of he comes from the northwestern province of Idlib, heartland of the rebels whose lightning push south compelled Assad to flee on December 8.
Manacled and blindfolded, Mohammed was taken to a detention centre within the upscale Mazzeh district of Damascus, house to embassies, United Nations places of work and safety headquarters.
They took him deep right into a constructing, and it was there that the blows started.
– Hung by his wrists –
For the primary few days, he was hung by his wrists from a bar excessive up in a cell, his ft unable to the touch the ground. Then he was lowered so at the least he may contact the bottom.
Mohammed was overwhelmed and fed virtually nothing. His solely contact was with the jailers.
“They informed me to admit that my brother had joined the rebels,” he stated.
“To be sincere, I informed them what they needed to listen to, although my brother’s a businessman who runs an support organisation right here in Sarmada.”
He stated he may hear the cries of ladies and kids being tortured in entrance of family members to make them confess.
After a month or so, Mohammed was handed over to navy intelligence, those who informed him that, from then on, he would solely be a quantity.
He was thrown right into a slender cell about two metres (six ft) lengthy, roughly the size of a person, and 1.2 metres huge. An overhead skylight offered the one supply of sunshine.
The cell had no electrical energy, no water, and when he wanted the bathroom, he stated the guards compelled him to go there bare, bent over and along with his eyes mounted on the ground.
They taunted him, saying he can be executed.
“You may have your throat slit like a sheep. Except you favor hanging by the legs? Or being impaled?”
In direction of the tip, Mohammed was after all unaware of what was taking place on the surface, of the fast 11-day insurgent advance from the north as Assad’s forces deserted their tanks and different tools.
– ‘He has modified’ –
“One evening they introduced us out of the cells and lined us all up within the hall, tied to one another. Two rows of 14 prisoners. We may see one another for the primary time, and assumed we have been going to die,” he stated.
They have been stored standing there for about an hour, earlier than being shoved again into random cells.
“I referred to as out that I used to be sick and wish the bathroom, however no one got here,” Mohammed stated.
“Then we heard the sound of helicopters touchdown and taking off once more, I suppose to remove the officers.”
A number of hours later the cell doorways have been damaged open and rebels freed them.
“I noticed the fighters seem. I believed I used to be dreaming.”
As Mohammed informed his story, his 75-year-old mom sat beside him and nuzzled his anorak. Not as soon as did she take her eyes off her son.
No one ever informed her he had been arrested. He merely disappeared.
The Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross says it has documented greater than 35,000 circumstances of disappearances in Syria.
Not like many, Mohammed was fortunate. He got here again.
“However he has modified,” his mom Fatima Abd al-Ghany stated. “Once I have a look at him, it is like he is not my son.”
He has nightmares, she stated, regardless of his denials.
“I hope they’re delivered to justice,” Mohammed stated of his captors. He is certain he can establish three of them.
