“I spent three and a half months in the slaughterhouse, the largest prison in Syria”

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Agents from a department called Air Force Intelligence came to pick me up from the tents where we were staying at that time while on duty. They took me to a prison in Harasta, in a town near Damascus. I was serving there at the time, but I’m originally from Homs. I was in the capital and they took me to Harasta, about 30 kilometers away. Then they transferred me to Sednaya, the largest prison in Syria and the worst reputation among the population. It was called “the slaughterhouse”. They came for me on February 28, 2012. I was incarcerated for 4 months – 3 and a half months in Sednaya.

I started serving (in the armed forces) when I was 19 years old. It was compulsory military service, you know? I didn’t want to. I wanted to help my brother with his grocery business. I was arrested for the first time at the age of 20 and I never participated in any opposition movement. Today I am 33 years old.

In Harasta they kicked me and beat me with weapons, but in Sednaya they used other torture techniques. The first was hunger. They started giving us little food. And the little food we received was of poor quality. When we were given tea it was served in horrible plastic cups. They beat us with weapons almost every day, more frequently than in Harasta, and they also intensified their practice during some “confession sessions”.

They asked me if I was part of an organization, they called me a traitor, they asked me the names of the people to whom I had to report. They said I was going to die there, that I would never see my family again. They tied a rubber rope around our necks until we ran out of air several times. The techniques were countless.

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There is no difference in treatment between civilians and military personnel at Sednaya. Anyone who has made it out alive knows what pain and suffering it is. I guess I was lucky when they released me. In Sednaya there were “human presses” and people were beaten into tires. While I was there, my family didn’t know anything. I never heard from them

When they released me, I found out that my family had gone looking for me and my brigadier general said he didn’t know anything. They sent them to get me, counting on their own luck. When I got out of prison, they sent me back to military service, under the same general I had worked for – and the same one who told my family to come get me. I was ordered to go to Qasioun, in the mountainous region of Damascus. That’s when I started looking for my wife and children, because they told me they were looking for me.

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After 10 days of searching, I managed to reconnect with them through a local friend in Homs and discovered that they had fled to Lebanon, via the northern border. I later found out that my brother, Muhammad, had done the same thing to our parents. They all lived there, but in different villages.

I felt more comfortable knowing that they were safer than me. I returned to serve in the armed forces, but because of my family’s flight, they denounced me and I was arrested a second time. They transferred me to al-Balloon prison in Homs, where my brother also stayed. I can’t say for sure how long I was there because, after everything I went through, I started to lose track of time. I remember experiencing the same types of torture and being asked the same questions over and over, such as who I was serving as a “terrorist”.

They released me again, but I refused to serve Assad’s forces again. I also defected to Lebanon, crossing the northern border, illegally and with the help of coyotes, to reunite with my family, but I did not go to the same place where my parents and brother were. Desertion was almost a road of no return. The government posted the names of defectors everywhere at borders and checkpoints. It was very difficult to get around that. It was a sentence without trial.

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When the regime fell, my brother and our parents immediately returned. I stayed a little longer in Lebanon. When I returned, my mother had already died. She died a month after the fall of the regime.