Scores of foreign detainees have been found in Syria after being imprisoned – some for decades – under the Assad regime, multiple reports said on Tuesday, following Bashar al-Assad’s ousting by rebel groups.
Since opposition forces and rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched the offensive on Syria, hundreds have been freed from a wide network of jails, showing signs of torture and abuse on their bodies.
On Monday, the director of a leading rights group, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), said that hundreds of thousands of Syrians who disappeared or were detained under Assad have likely been executed.
The group said that 136,614 people were being held in Syria’s vast prison network, while the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 60,000 people have died under torture or due to harsh conditions in Assad’s detention centres over the years.
The New Arab looks at some of the foreign detainees found and freed from Syria prisons in recent days.
Lebanon
Lebanon’s caretaker government has already started working on compiling information and investigating missing or forcibly disappeared Lebanese citizens in Syria’s detention centres.
Prime minister Najib Mikati on Monday evening said this was a priority, requesting several ministries and departments to get involved in the search.
Mikati met with members of the Committee on Detainees in Syrian Prisons on Monday, where it was decided that they would liaise with security forces from the army command, internal security forces, general security and the state security, in order compile information on Lebanese citizens in Syrian jails.
A Lebanese man, identified as Souheil Hamaou, has already been identified as one of the individuals who was detained in Syria and has now been freed.
According to L’Orient Le Jour, he was arrested in December 1992 at his home in Chekka when his son was only 10 months old.
Hamaou recounted being transferred to several regime prisons until he ended up in one in Latakia among other Lebanese prisoners.
Lebanon’s president of the Kataeb party, MP Samy Gemayel, called on the government to take “urgent measures” in releasing information on the fate of “622 Lebanese detained in Syrian prisons” since the civil war and others who have been released.
Lebanon’s minister of interior on Tuesday said that so far, there were nine Lebanese nationals who have arrived in the country after being freed from Syrian prisons.
Jordan
A Jordanian prisoner was also reunited with his family on Tuesday, after 38 years behind bars without charges in Syria, various news outlets reported on Tuesday.
Jordan’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Sufian al-Qudah, said the man has been identified as Osama Bashir Batayneh and crossed the Jaber border crossing where his identity was verified before he met his family.
Batayneh’s family said he was arrested in 1986 during a visit to Syria while he was a student. Since then, he disappeared with no information surfacing about him.
Al-Qudah said Batayneh was released from the notorious Sednaya prison, which has become synonymous with torture and bloodshed.
“He is in a tragic condition and suffers memory loss,” he said.
Turkey
Two Turkish men were also among those who were freed by rebels in the offensive, reports said on Tuesday. The two men have been identified as Mehmet Erturk and Engin Arslan.
According to the Turkish Daily Sabah, they returned to their families on Monday.
Erturk was arrested in 2003 on charges of smuggling. Now 53, he spent the past 21 years behind bars, despite serving his sentence nine years ago. He maintains that he was detained on false allegations.
He said he was tortured and verbally abused in prison, never expecting to be released.
“Almost everyone incarcerated there was subject to fatal torture. They once issued a pardon and released all foreigners, but Turks in the prison were not pardoned”.
According to his testimony, rebels broke through prison cell doors with hammers, first releasing women.
Arslan was released after 13 months of imprisonment. He says he was captured by Assad regime forces while he was crossing the country to reach Gaza.
He has now returned to his hometown of Maisa in western Turkey.
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