Riyad Avlar, a former Turkish detainee at Syria’s notorious Sednaya Prison on the outskirts of Damascus, says the deposed Assad regime can be held accountable for its crimes if critical records of the prison can be preserved.
The call comes as vital Assad regime documents have vanished following the regime leader’s escape to Russia, effectively ending his family’s 51-year brutal rule. These documents are critical for obtaining details of atrocities and holding perpetrators responsible.
In an interview with Anadolu Agency (AA), Avlar, who is also a co-founder of the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons at Sednaya Prison, highlighted the importance of safeguarding records. “These documents reveal the conditions of detention, the fates of missing persons and the whereabouts of detainees. They are crucial for uncovering the truth,” he said.
Avlar, who survived 21 years in Syrian prisons, including 15 years of enforced disappearance, shared his harrowing experience. “For 15 of those years, I was forcibly disappeared, and during that time, I had no contact with my family. Only my brother was allowed a brief 10-minute visit,” he said.
His ordeal began in the 1990s when Syrian intelligence intercepted a letter he sent to his family detailing human rights abuses at Tadmor Prison, which was overseen by Rifaat Assad, the brother of then-President Hafez Assad. Avlar, who was in Syria to learn languages, later discovered he had been falsely accused of espionage.
Avlar noted that while Sednaya Prison was notorious for torture and human rights violations even before 2011, the scale of atrocities worsened after the Syrian uprising. “Before 2011, violations included torture, insults, threats and inadequate food. After 2011, killings began without trials. Soldiers would enter cells and execute detainees or patients arbitrarily. The peak of these extrajudicial executions occurred in 2013 and 2014,” he recounted.
He explained the horrific conditions in 2008, where overcrowding, sniper fire and live ammunition were used against detainees. “A cell designed for 13 people often held far more after 2011,” he added. Despite the suffering, Avlar expressed hope when he saw Syrians opening prison doors during the revolution. “We, too, dreamed of being rescued by the revolutionaries,” he said. He was eventually released in 2016.
He emphasized the urgent need to preserve documents related to detainee movements, including records from prisons, hospitals and courts. “These records are more valuable than court files. They show where detainees were taken, whether they were transferred, hospitalized or killed,” he said, adding that the disappearance of such records poses a major obstacle to accountability.
The association Avlar co-founded has worked extensively to document Sednaya’s structure, including its floors, sections and cells, as well as the routes detainees were transferred through. Their reports estimate that between 2011 and 2020, 37,000 people were detained at Sednaya, with only about 7,000 surviving. The group has also investigated the role of Tishreen Military Hospital, which served as the final stop for detainees killed in Sednaya before their bodies were transported to mass graves. “From Sednaya to Tishreen Military Hospital and then to mass graves. These facts are well-known, and we have detailed satellite images, on-the-ground witnesses and evidence,” he said.
According to reports published by international organizations, Sednaya Military Prison, located 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Damascus and under the control of the collapsing regime’s Ministry of Defense, became a detention center for anti-regime peaceful protesters and military elements following the events of March 2011. These reports describe how regime officials quietly and systematically organized the killing of thousands of detainees at the prison.
The regime’s mass executions at Sednaya are revealed in reports, which note that between 2011 and 2015, nearly 50 people were hanged every week, or sometimes every two weeks. Additionally, the reports show that the regime intentionally kept detainees in inhumane conditions, subjected them to torture, and systematically deprived them of food, water, medicine and medical care. A 2017 Amnesty International investigation found that murders and torture at Sednaya since 2011 were part of a widespread and systematic attack on Syria’s civilian population, carried out as part of the regime’s policy. Amnesty International concluded that the violations by the regime’s officials at Sednaya amounted to crimes against humanity.
Turkish lawmakers also plan to join efforts to document human rights violations in Syria. Adem Yıldırım, a lawmaker from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) who chairs a parliamentary sub-committee on Islamophobia and racism, said they would soon visit Syria. Yıldırım told reporters on Thursday that they would like to show the world the regime’s inhumane treatment of people.