Bashar al-Assad fell – then one woman learnt her husband’s past

It was early December when Douna Haj Ahmed, a Syrian refugee, found the disturbing particulars of her husband’s detention within the infamous Al-Khatib jail – generally known as “Hell on Earth“.

She was watching bewildered prisoners fleeing the nation’s brutal safety equipment, on the information at house in London, after insurgent forces had ousted Bashar al-Assad as president.

By way of tears, Abdullah Al Nofal, her husband of eight years sat subsequent to her, turned and mentioned: “That is the place I used to be arrested, that is the place.”

Douna, whose brothers had been additionally arrested throughout Syria’s 13-year civil struggle, says she had an concept of what her husband skilled throughout his detention – however this was the primary time he was sharing the total particulars of what he endured.

“Abdullah doesn’t wish to share issues emotionally, he likes to seem like a robust man on a regular basis,” Douna, 33, tells the BBC.

“It was a turning level. I noticed him weak. I noticed him crying. I noticed him saying: ‘That is the place I used to be. I may very well be one among them. I may very well be one among them proper now, or I may very well be useless’.

“I really feel that when he noticed this, he felt that this [was] closure,” she provides. “Now we would like individuals to listen to what Syrians went by.”

Abdullah, 36, was working in Damascus as a retailer keeper with the Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross in July 2013 when he and his colleagues had been stopped at a checkpoint on the outskirts of the Syrian capital.

He says he participated in anti-regime protests in 2011 within the southern metropolis of Deraa, the place the rebellion towards Assad started, however quickly distanced himself when rebels started to make use of violence and weapons in response to a brutal crackdown by the regime’s forces.

Abdullah was singled out on the checkpoint and placed on a inexperienced bus, handcuffed and blindfolded, and brought to a army space. He says he was then put in solitary confinement for 3 days and crushed.

“It was so darkish for 3 days, I keep in mind,” he says.

“I do not [hear] any sound. It was so darkish. You hear nothing. You’re feeling so lonely.”

Abdullah was then transported to Al-Khatib, a detention centre in Damascus, and brought to a cell with about 130 individuals.

Al-Khatib was one among a number of detention amenities operated by Syrian intelligence companies.

Virtually 60,000 individuals had been tortured and killed within the prisons run by the Assad regime throughout the civil struggle, based on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group.

Two years in the past, a historic trial in Germany discovered a Syrian colonel who worked in Al-Khatib guilty of crimes against humanity. Anwar Raslan, 58, was linked to the torture of over 4,000 individuals within the jail.

In court docket, witnesses described how detainees had been raped and hung from the ceiling for hours, in addition to the usage of electrical shocks earlier than being doused in water. Assad’s authoritarian authorities beforehand denied accusations of torturing.

Throughout his detention in 2013, Abdullah describes how he would frequently hear the screams of people being tortured.

He recollects how illnesses had been rife and that about 20 individuals died whereas he was detained there.

“Once I began to go searching all over the place, there have been individuals standing nearly bare,” he tells the BBC. “They had been filled with blood, like they [have] been tortured.

“If you’re not tortured your self, each minute they’ll take somebody to the investigation.

“They may get again to the room filled with blood… each time you contact somebody they’ll scream since you touched their wound.”

After 12 days, Abdullah was taken to be interrogated, the place he says he was repeatedly crushed with a metallic weapon and accused of transporting weapons.

He explains how he couldn’t deny the accusations put ahead to him as it could result in extended punishment.

“So long as you say, ‘I did not do it’, they’ll maintain torturing you and they’re going to take you to a different stage in torturing,” he says.

“Each minute it is such as you’re dying.”

Abdullah says he informed officers a false story to keep away from additional interrogation, and was “fortunate” to be launched from detention after a month.

A number of years later, he left Syria and was later granted scholarships in Geneva and the US. He’s now settled in London along with his spouse.

Solely now does Abdullah really feel in a position to share the total horror of his experiences along with his spouse, as the danger and concern he confronted is slowly disappearing.

“We lastly end[ed] with the regime, we are able to say, we’re actually free proper now,” he says.

“You need to use our identify. You need to use our face. We are able to inform the total story.”

Douna, a human rights activist, sobbed as she heard her husband’s experiences for the primary time.

“I used to be listening to him and I used to be crying. Each time I really feel that this regime [has reached] the utmost of the horrors, of the horrible tales,” she says.

“It surprises me that, no, this isn’t the utmost. There may very well be extra.”

She provides: “We’re privileged that we’re in a position to inform our tales. Numerous individuals, they died with out being heard.”