They confiscated his papers, he said, and told him: “Now you are number 3006.”

For five and a half months, Mohammed languished in one of President Bashar al-Assad’s prisons, losing 40 kilos (88 pounds), while facing imminent execution.

Since Islamist rebels overthrew Assad’s paranoid and brutal government a week ago, many former prisoners like Mohammed are highlighting the depth of despair that has gripped the Syrian population in recent decades.

Mohammed, an emaciated man propped up on cushions in front of the stove in Sarmada, near Aleppo, in northwest Syria, is a shadow of his former self.

The 39-year-old swears he has never been involved in politics in Syria, that he is a simple trader trying to make a living with his brothers.

He was arrested during a brief business trip to Damascus and thrown into hell.

“There comes a time when you lose all hope,” says Mohammed, his beard and black hair cut short.

“Towards the end, I just wanted to die, waiting for them to execute us. I was almost happy, because that would mean my suffering was over.”

It was the mukhabarat, the omnipotent intelligence services henchmen and enforcers of the Assad regime, who captured him during his visit to the capital.

They took him away, with his hands behind his back, in the company of one of his friends, a doctor.

“It was five and a half months ago,” Mohammed told AFP.

He does not know why he was arrested, but thinks it may be because he is from the northwest province of Idlib, home to rebels whose lightning push south has forced Assad to flee on December 8.

Handcuffed and blindfolded, Mohammed was taken to a detention center in Damascus’ upscale Mazzeh neighborhood, which houses embassies, United Nations offices and security headquarters.

They took him deep into a building, and that’s when the beating started.

Hanging by his wrists

For the first few days, he was hung by his wrists from a bar high up in a cell, his feet unable to touch the ground. Then it was lowered so that it could at least touch the ground.

Mohammed was beaten and fed almost nothing. His only contact was with the jailers.

“They told me to confess that my brother had joined the rebels,” he said.

“To be honest, I told them what they wanted to hear, even though my brother is a businessman who runs a humanitarian organization here in Sarmada.”

He said he could hear the screams of women and children being tortured in front of their loved ones to make them confess.

After about a month, Mohammed was handed over to military intelligence, who told him that from then on he would be just a number.

He was thrown into a narrow cell about two meters long, about the length of a man, and 1.2 meters wide. A skylight in the ceiling provided the only source of light.

The cell had no electricity or water, and when he needed to go to the bathroom, he said guards forced him to go naked, bent over and with his eyes fixed on the floor.

They taunted him saying he would be executed.

“You’re going to have your throat cut like a sheep. Unless you prefer to hang yourself by your legs? Or get impaled?”

Towards the end, Mohammed was of course unaware of what was happening outside, of the rebels’ rapid advance from the north over 11 days as Assad’s forces abandoned their tanks and other equipment.

“He has changed”

“One night they took us out of the cells and lined us all up in the corridor, tied to each other. Two rows of 14 prisoners. We saw each other for the first time and thought we were going to die,” he said. -he declared. said.

They stayed there for about an hour, before being pushed back into random cells.

“I shouted that I was sick and needed to go to the bathroom, but no one came,” Mohammed said.

“Then we heard the sound of helicopters landing and taking off, I guess to take the officers away.”

A few hours later, the cell doors were broken down and the rebels freed them.

“I saw the fighters appear. I thought I was dreaming.”

As Mohammed told his story, his 75-year-old mother sat next to him and snuggled into his anorak. Not once did she take her eyes off her son.

No one ever told him he had been arrested. He simply disappeared.

The International Committee of the Red Cross claims to have recorded more than 35,000 cases of disappearances in Syria.

Unlike many, Mohammed was lucky. He came back.

“But he has changed,” said his mother Fatima Abd al-Ghany. “When I look at him, it’s like he’s not my son.”

He has nightmares, she says, despite his denials.

“I hope they will be brought to justice,” Mohammed said of his captors. He is confident he can identify three.

© 2024 AFP