Syria's 'Caesar' reveals his identity and tells horrific details about Assad's crimes for the first time

The person who carried out the largest leak of the crimes of the deposed President Bashar al-Assad against Syrian detainees, known as “Caesar”, revealed horrific details about the journey of smuggling tens of thousands of photos of Syrian detainees who were killed under torture in basements and prisons.

In a special episode of the program “The Story Continues” entitled “The Caesar of Syria Speaks,” “Caesar” revealed his identity for the first time. He is First Lieutenant Farid Nida Al-Madhan, head of the Forensic Evidence Department of the Military Police in the capital, Damascus, and he hails from the city of Daraa in the south of the country.

Al-Mudhan recounted exciting details about the journey of collecting evidence and data that he leaked outside Syria and formed the nucleus of the Caesar files.

Killing and filming orders

"Caesar" said that the orders to photograph and document the crimes of Bashar al-Assad's regime come from the top of the pyramid of power to ensure that the killing is actually being carried out, noting that the leaders of the security services were expressing their absolute loyalty to the Assad regime through pictures of the bodies of the victims of arrest.

According to Al-Mudhan, the first photographing of detainees’ bodies was in the morgue of Tishreen Military Hospital in Damascus, of demonstrators from Daraa in March 2011, confirming that as soon as the detainee enters the detention center, a number is placed on his body after he is killed.

According to "Caesar", the places where the bodies of the victims of detention were collected and photographed were in the morgues of Tishreen Military Hospital and Harasta, in addition to converting the parking garage at Mezzeh Military Hospital into a yard for collecting bodies to photograph them as the number of dead increased.

He stressed that at the beginning of the Syrian revolution, the number of bodies ranged from 10 to 15 bodies per day, later reaching 50 per day, noting that "the Assad regime used to write that the cause of death of those it killed was cardiac and respiratory arrest."

"Caesar" painted a horrific scene of the Assad regime's practices, pointing to systematic blackmail operations carried out against thousands of detainees' families without obtaining any information.

He narrated part of his method of hiding the photos of the detainees, saying, “I used to hide the media for transferring the photos in my clothes, a loaf of bread, and my body, for fear of being searched at the security checkpoints.” He added, “I was subjected to searches in areas controlled by the regime and in areas controlled by the Free Syrian Army.”

Al-Mudhan said that he had an official military ID and a fake civilian ID to travel between his workplace in Damascus and his residence in the city of Al-Tall in the Damascus countryside, noting that the process of smuggling the photos took place almost daily from his workplace to his residence and lasted for about 3 years.

The decision to defect and leave

Regarding the defection from the Assad regime, "Caesar" said that he had the decision since the beginning of the Syrian revolution, but he decided to postpone it in order to be able to collect the largest number of photos and evidence.

"Caesar" revealed that he had left for Qatar via Jordan, where a law firm had prepared his file in order to hold the ousted Syrian regime accountable.

He expressed his hope that the new Syrian government would open "national courts to prosecute and hold accountable perpetrators of war crimes," and also called on the US government to cancel the Caesar Act and lift sanctions on the Syrian people.

In November 2016, the US House of Representatives passed the Caesar Act, which accused the Assad regime of committing war crimes and imposed sanctions on individuals involved in violations against Syrians or their families.

The law listed the weapons used against the Syrian people, including explosive barrels and chemical weapons, in addition to other methods such as siege, torture, executions, deliberate targeting of medical facilities, and others.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights documented - until the year 2023 - the killing of 230,224 civilians, including 15,272 who were killed under torture, in addition to the disappearance and arrest of 154,816 people, and the displacement of nearly 14 million Syrians.

It also documented no less than 874 attacks on medical facilities, 1,416 attacks on places of worship, and 1,611 attacks on schools, in addition to the desecration of vital facilities and their conversion into detention centers and military points, and the destruction of large areas of Syria in multiple governorates.

Source: Al Jazeera