Syrian who revealed 50,000 pictures of dying warns of extra horror to come back | EUROtoday

The Syrian navy defector codenamed Caesar, who smuggled out greater than 53,000 haunting pictures displaying tortured, emaciated corpses of Syrian detainees – proof that led to landmark sanctions – has warned that they’re merely a “snapshot” of the complete extent of crimes dedicated beneath the Assad regime.

Speaking completely to The Independentthe photographer additionally revealed how he managed to get the pictures out of Syria, hiding USB flash drives of proof in his underwear earlier than he was smuggled out of Syria with the assistance of rebels by way of a flour truck to Jordan.

His household reported him kidnapped and murdered by terrorists to offer cowl for his escape.

The former navy photographer, who has testified anonymously in regards to the proof of savagery he witnessed to governments all over the world, known as for world efforts to help Syria in bringing these liable for the “worst crimes of the 21st century” to account.

The Independent spoke to Caesar, who has been residing in absolute secrecy for a decade, by telephone as our correspondent visited Military Hospital 601 within the Mezzah neighbourhood of Damascus, the precise spot the place he took lots of the horrific pictures that shocked the world.

Now empty because the gorgeous overthrow of Bashar al-Assad final weekend, the constructing stands as a chilling monument to the industrial-scale horrors dedicated by the previous regime.

The pictures Caesar took, which additionally included images of assault websites and the our bodies of armed fighters or civilians killed in assaults, supplied the primary intensive glimpse into the atrocities dedicated by Assad’s authorities after the beginning of the 2011 revolution, which changed into a bloody civil struggle.

The pictures which confirmed emaciated mutilated our bodies, some with eyes gouged out and numbers written on their arms or heads, had been verified by human rights organisations and the FBI.

“I took photographs from 2011 to 2013. During that time, I personally saw at least 11,000 dead men, women, children, and elderly people,” he advised The Independent from exile, in his first interview because the fall of the Assad regime.

“I took almost 55,000 photographs of people who were tortured. And that was just in one place – just in Damascus. It was only a snapshot in time, geography, and place.

“I can tell you this was happening everywhere else. So, in terms of how many people have been literally tortured to death, it’s in the hundreds of thousands.”

He stated that throughout the three years he was taking these images and smuggling them out, he lived in “fear and terror”, realizing that if the federal government discovered what he was doing, “I would become one of those bodies.” Despite this, he expressed his willingness to return to assist with investigations in Syria and known as on the worldwide neighborhood to help these efforts.

The Independent spoke to Caesar along with Mouaz Moustafa, the founding father of a US-based NGO, the Syrian Emergency Task Force, which helped smuggle the images out of Syria by way of USB drives and lift consciousness globally.

Moustafa, who has lacking members of the family and pals himself, stood in a scrubby courtyard the place our bodies had been as soon as laid out, numbered, documented, and photographed, their faces and our bodies mutilated, emaciated from hunger and sickness.

During our interview, Moustafa spoke to Caesar on the telephone to substantiate the precise location – though among the buildings have been modified because the images had been taken over a decade in the past.

He defined that Caesar spent two-and-a-half years importing pictures from his job onto a flash drive, which he hid in his underwear or socks every day, as he went by way of checkpoints on his manner residence. Some pictures had been despatched by way of the web, however the sheer quantity of recordsdata made it unattainable to ship every part that manner.

Eventually, Moustafa says he was smuggled by way of rebel-held areas of Damascus after which out of Syria, hidden in a truck carrying flour, into Jordan. Along with him had been the laborious drives containing pictures, images of paperwork displaying command accountability, and proof of disappearances.

Moustafa stated Caesar’s household then reported to the regime authorities every week later that he had been kidnapped and killed by terrorists and requested permission to attend a funeral in southern Syria, which supplied a canopy for his or her escape. Caesar then undertook a gruelling journey by way of a number of international locations within the area earlier than lastly reaching Europe the place he was granted asylum.

Since escaping Syria a decade in the past, Caesar has toured the world anonymously – his face and voice hid – testifying earlier than governments and parliaments. He repeatedly warned that the 150,000 folks believed to nonetheless be imprisoned in Syria may meet the identical destiny because the folks in his images. This warning is proving chillingly correct, as households of the nation’s lacking have flocked to prisons, morgues, and hospitals which have opened for the primary time since Assad’s dramatic ouster final week.

His images led to the landmark Caesar Act within the US in 2019, which imposed sanctions on regime officers and people supporting Assad’s navy efforts throughout the Syrian civil struggle, together with overseas companies. The act additionally granted authority to the US secretary of state to help entities gathering proof and pursuing prosecutions towards people who dedicated struggle crimes in Syria.

Speaking from the hospital, Moustafa described how detainees’ our bodies had been ferried there on vehicles, close by of the presidential palace positioned only a kilometre away on a close-by hill, with numbers written on their foreheads.

“We spoke to physicians who explained that after Caesar photographed the bodies in this area, they were loaded onto trucks and taken away. For a long time, we didn’t know where they went until we discovered the mass graves when we met the gravediggers,” he added.

Caesar, who nonetheless has not revealed his true identification, has supplied to return to Syria to assist the incoming authorities acquire proof. “I’ve spent my life serving the Syrian people,” he advised The Independent. “Even after I finished the photos, I travelled the world, going to the United States Congress and showing what was happening. Back then, today, and in the future, I will continue to serve Syria.

“If the new government of Syria calls on me to come and help with accountability, I would be the first one here. Absolutely. I will intervene.”

He additionally burdened that the world should work to seek out and prosecute these accountable.

“The whole world should remember that the Syrian people suffered the worst crimes of the 21st century. What we are seeing now, as they investigate the liberated intelligence branches and prisons, is the worst kind of torture.

“It is very important that Assad’s regime and the thugs who committed these horrible genocidal crimes are held accountable. For far too long, there was no justice.”