“Human slaughterhouses”: inside Syria’s deadly prisons
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Since the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, much has been made of the brutality of its prison network. There was dramatic footage of inmates in the notorious Sadaniya prison, where thousands of political opponents had been locked up, tortured and killed, being freed

by rebels. In fact, in 2021, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 100,000 people had been executed or killed in Assad's prison network in the first 10 years of the country's civil war. Of those, 30,000 perished and Soudanaya alone.

So today we're going to take an in-depth look at the horrors of Assad's prison network and the stories of some of those who've been held there. Our guest is The Times journalist Oliver Marsden, who joins us from Damascus. Oliver, first of all, just give us a sense of what life in these prisons has been like. They've been described as human slaughterhouses. Is that accurate? From my experience of visiting Sednaya prison this morning, I mean, I would almost have to agree that

The prison that we went into was just, it was dark, it was damp, it was fetid, and there were just sort of signs of torture, of death around. I mean, outside the prison, we actually came across a wall in which two red nooses had been hung from the top, and it was reported that inmates were hung there.

We even came across a device which was a large kind of, I don't know how to describe it, a machine kind of to compress things. And what we were told is that some of the bodies of the prisoners who had died or been killed, they would be covered in salt and then put into this machine and compressed down to make it easier for them to transport or decompose further. So,

So yeah, there were quite horrific scenes in this prison and it was a sort of very dark morning. And how important were these prisons for the Assad regime? To what extent were they used almost as a deliberate tactic for suppressing opposition? I mean, prisons like Sednaya, other institutions like the military intelligence,

buildings and units, the Air Force intelligence units. I mean, these buildings housed a lot of Syrian activists, a lot of Syrian rebels, and they became synonymous with kind of torture, with disappearance, and they were used to really create this climate of fear in Syria. And by the regime, people would often go in and disappear and family members would have no news or would spend years, decades, you know, searching for loved ones or for any news of loved ones.

So yeah, they created this real climate and I believe it's how the Assad regime managed to hang on for as long as it did, really. And obviously until a few days ago, we didn't really know the full story of what had been happening in these prisons. How much have we learned since then?

Well, we've seen that more and more places are being found. There are reports that there is even a prison underneath the university here in Damascus. And HTS militants and those who have taken over Syria, they're still searching everywhere for prisons. There were even prisoners found in the Air Force Military Intelligence Building yesterday, I believe, alive.

freed. We've even had news recently, even today I think, of Travis Timmerman who was an American missionary who was picked up several months ago. He has been found alive and freed. That's given a renewed push and hope for Austin Tice who disappeared in Syria several years ago. There's been this renewed hope of maybe finding him or some clues to his whereabouts. Each day there are

more and more bits of evidence, more and more people, more and more places are being found as this search continues. Yeah, Austin Tice being the American journalist and former Marine who hasn't been seen since 2012.

Meanwhile, Oliver, you've also been writing about another high profile prisoner, Mazan al-Hamada. Just tell us about him. So Mazan al-Hamada was a Syrian activist and he was picked up by the Syrian regime and put into prison and actually multiple prisons across Syria.

Syria, and he was tortured quite horrifically. His ribs were broken when soldiers stamped on his chest. He even had the private parts of his body clamped. He was hung up by his wrists.

And he still had the marks of the ropes and the chains used to hang him up. He still had those marks around his wrists. And he eventually escaped to Europe in 2014. And he kind of made it his mission to tell everyone and to tell the world about what happened to him. He sort of became famous by

retelling his story to the United Nations, to human rights lawyers and to many documentarians, you know, making films about it. And he would cry every time he relived his torture and he told the world. So he became the kind of face of

the torture and the cruelty of the Assad regime, and he became famous sort of throughout the world. His story kind of echoed that of many Syrians and many people here in Syria. Now, in 2020, he came back to Syria. The reasons for doing so are a little unclear, but it is believed

that he felt that after telling his story to the West and to the European Union and the United Nations so many times, he felt that he told his story, but nothing had changed. Nothing had happened in Syria and it hadn't helped. And he was sort of feeling despair,

There were also reports that he'd been slightly groomed and picked up by a kind of pro-regime spell that was based in Berlin, where he was living at the time with his nephew. And they'd started to sort of give him drugs. He was already in a bit of an unstable mental state. And he was eventually persuaded to return to Syria, that he would be able to return and wouldn't face any consequences. And he felt that he could maybe make change, effect change from within Syria. And so he returned.

And there are reports that he was actually sort of almost coerced and forced into returning by people in the Syrian embassy in Berlin. And when he returned, he disappeared. And he was found just a few days ago in Sidnaya. His body was found wrapped in a bloodied sheet and buried.

He had been killed, according to the doctors, the coroner's report, just hours before the liberation of this prison and before the rebels took over Syria and Assad fled the country. And Oliver, you actually attended his funeral earlier today. What was that like?

There were hundreds following his coffin down the streets. They were chanting, they were chanting his name, they were chanting that the criminal Assad must be executed. They were chanting for justice and they followed his coffin from the Damascus hospital a mile down the road to Al Hijazi Square where many people had gathered.

They were waving flags and chanting his name, waving the new flags of Syria which have the three stars in them of the opposition as opposed to the former flag which has two stars.

And it was a strange day. One young girl, one 25-year-old girl called Nora, she told me that she had really mixed emotions because they were happy. They were happy for the freedom of Syria and the freedom that they felt, but they were also sad because they were at Mazen al-Hamada's funeral. So this sort of weird mixture of emotions, this happiness and this despair in the same day, which I think is kind of...

a fair telling of what many people in Syria are feeling right now as the country is liberated, but more information about those who have been disappeared into the prison system comes out. Just finally, Oliver, do we know what will happen to these prisons now? Will they simply be taken over by the new regime?

I think it's too early to say. I mean, there are still people, families traveling from across Syria. I met a family from Hasakah, which had traveled 400 miles to Sidnaya prison today. And they had set up camp. There were families camping outside Sidnaya prison. They were huddled around any documentation they could find, still trying to find any information for missing loved ones.

So I think it's too early to say. There are still many, many families desperately hoping for some sign or a body or some evidence of the whereabouts of their loved ones. And so far they haven't found it and they're still looking. And I think that could be the case for days, if not weeks to come. Oliver, thank you. Really appreciate your time. That is The Times journalist Oliver Marsden, who's in Damascus. And that's it from us. Thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. We'll see you tomorrow.

How can governments play a pivotal role as the world shifts? From decarbonizing the economy to sustainable care systems, bold government strategies are needed now more than ever. Get informed by listening to Government Insights, the new podcast from EY Parthenon. This series explores how government executives can transform their strategies into actions that are future-proof and sustainable.

Government Insights is out now. Download today wherever you get your podcasts.

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