Photographic evidence has emerged of Shitbeards buddy Assad ordering the torture, starvation, and death of 10s of thousands of his countrymen.
Maybe Shitbeard can explain again how this was actually just everyone misunderstanding, because Syria was actually a utopian spot he was desperate to visit.. just like all of those photos he used post of roundabouts and flags fluttering
For shame
From todays IT:
Syria’s disappeared: leak of Assad torture photos reveals fate of thousands
Abdullah Hussein al-Akhras’s family knew he died in prison, but they had never seen the photographs of his emaciated body lying on the ground, a handwritten code affixed to him.
The father of two is among a new cache of tens of thousands of images of starved, tortured and murdered detainees who perished in Syria’s
Assad-eraprisons and detention facilities.
The new photographs could provide more information to family members about the fates of missing loved ones, and more undeniable evidence to the rest of the world about the crimes against humanity and war crimes carried out by the Assad regime, which used detention and torture to instil widespread fear and maintain control.
They were kept on a hard drive by a former colonel in
Syria’s military police. The man, who spoke under the condition that he is not named, leaked them to German broadcaster NDR, which shared the photographs with the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), of which The Irish Times is a partner.
The Irish Times became aware of the existence of the leaked photographs in October and has advocated for consulting victims’ families regarding their release.
The data is also in the possession of the Syrian Centre for Legal Studies and Research, a non-governmental organisation which is led by Syrian human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni, as well as the German Federal General Prosecutor. Germany has universal jurisdiction, meaning it can prosecute certain serious crimes carried out anywhere in the world.
The ICIJ has also gained access to tens of thousands of files leaked from Syrian intelligence agencies. It is not clear whether Syrian authorities have the photographs and documents or how they will get them. A list of more than 1,500 names of people who are dead or whose arrests were recorded has been shared with the UN’s Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, and survivors-led initiative Ta’afi.
The full number of photographs is significantly larger than the amount smuggled out by a military defector code-named Caesar, the existence of which
became known in January 2014, prompting a global outcry.
More than 33,000 photographs of former detainees are included in the new leak, with more than 70,000 photographs in total, and are mostly believed to have been taken in 2015-2024. At least 10,212 detainees are pictured, according to an analysis by journalists. The majority are not identified with names but with numbers on white paper or material affixed to their bodies.
Many of the bodies bear clear signs of torture, including emaciation, bruising, bloodied and swollen faces, bloodied body parts, bandaged limbs, visible lacerations and missing teeth. Nearly half of the bodies are naked and about three-quarters show signs of starvation, according to an analysis of more than 540 photographs by journalists from NDR, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and ICIJ. Two-thirds show signs of physical harm.
The man who supplied the photographs led the “Evidence Preservation Unit” of the military police in Damascus in 2020 until December 2024. In an interview with NDR he said he was leaking the data – which had been stored on a hard-drive in his possession – because he finally had the opportunity to do so when the regime fell. “There are matters that people have to know. Dead people, their families have to know where they are. Missing people.”
His department’s role, he said, was “documentation”: recording “every incident that happens in Damascus and the countryside of Damascus in pictures”. That included taking photographs of dead “security detainees”, usually in Harasta hospital. “Everything is official,” he said.
Reporters from the ICIJ believe the photographs include victims from at least six different security branches. The numbers on the bodies appear to indicate both a branch code and a death sequence number. The photographs also include metadata, including a date and time, though it is not clear if this is always accurate.
Many of those photographed in clothes have their trousers and underwear pulled down and their T-shirts pulled up, to expose their torsos. Some were photographed with someone else’s feet touching their head (it is not clear if this was to steady them, or meant as a sign of disrespect). Some were photographed with other corpses visible beside them, with photographs of different bodies taken seconds apart, according to the metadata.
‘He didn’t harm anyone’
In a humble home in the Syrian town of Ghabagheb, in Daraa, Akhras’s family flinched in horror as they recognised him in the photographs, which they had never seen before.
His sister, Mariam al-Akhras (35), began to cry. “He was really a very kind person, he didn’t harm anyone in his life,” she said. Other family members immediately asked whether there were more pictures of other people: they have other missing relatives and are desperate for information about them too.
Akhras – a former conscript turned military defector, born in 1992 – was arrested and imprisoned by the regime in September 2023. Shortly before, he was caught in Turkey attempting to find a route to Europe and deported to Syria. His father and wife visited him six times in the notorious
Sednaya prison, but those visits lasted minutes and the jailers stood right beside him, recalled Marwa Jamal el-Ali (32).
When she asked her husband how he was, he could just say “everything is okay” but he looked “tired” and asked for medicines.
“When I met him for the last time he was in a very bad health condition, he was not able to stand,” said his father, Hussein al-Akhras (64).
Akhras’s family sold property to pay bribes, realising this might be the only way to save his life: his father estimates they paid at least 65,000,000 Syrian pounds in total. Yet his son died shortly after their last visit. Chaker Moussa Alhboes (38), a neighbour who was imprisoned in Sednaya at the same time, said all detainees were starved and beaten, and Akhras was denied medical care.
Unlike many other families, Akhras’s were informed he had died and were allowed to collect his body. They believe this was because they had paid so much money in bribes and his case was still going through an official legal process. When they received his body there was no trace of the code it had been officially photographed with.
Now they are calling for accountability and justice, as well as help and assistance for the family.
“Everyone who took money” should be held accountable, said Marwa. “The smugglers who took money, the judges, the soldiers ...”
“We need trials for everyone who was in this failed corrupt state,” said her brother, Ahmad Jamal el-Ali.
