For many years, the world only knew them by the aliases Caesar and Sami. Since 2014, these two names have been associated with documenting torture in Syrian prisons. The photos they smuggled out of Syria shook the world and prompted the United States to impose strict sanctions on the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad, under what became known as the “Caesar Act.”
These horrific photos documenting torture inflicted on detainees in Syrian prisons were used in courts in Western countries to convict Syrian officers on charges of torture and human rights violations.
But who is Sami, Ceasar’s “twin witness”?
In the first-ever interview he grants using his real name and photo, Sami revealed to “Asharq Al-Awsat” that he is Osama Othman, and that he is today head of the board of directors of the “Caesar Files Group Organization.”
He was working as a civil engineer when the Syrian revolution broke out in 2011, a revolution that began peacefully but quickly turned into a bloodbath after the forces of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime brutally suppressed it.
Sami lived in the Damascus countryside, which was divided between opposition factions and government forces. His area was under the control of factions that were part of what was known as the “Free Army,” but a person very close to him, who later became known as “Caesar,” was working in areas controlled by the regime forces. His job was not ordinary. His mission was to document deaths in Syrian security services departments. He documented them with photos: this body is missing a part of the head, this one is missing eyes, and that one has signs of severe torture. Some of the bodies showed signs of starvation.
He documented naked bodies with numbers. Thousands of photos. Women, men, and children. The crime of many of them was officially classified as “terrorism.” But how could a child’s crime be “terrorism”? The ugliness of the crimes prompted “Sami” and “Caesar” to work together to document what was happening in Syrian prisons and detention centers, specifically in Damascus, where “Caesar” worked and who sometimes documented the deaths of no less than 70 people a day. The two men began collaborating on collecting torture documents in May 2011. “Caesar” would smuggle the photos on a USB drive and give them to Sami in opposition areas.
“Dad... why are they sleeping without clothes?”
The “smuggler” of the Syrian torture archive is often reluctant to talk about himself and evades answering questions about his personal role in the story. However, after much persistence, he recounted a small portion of his experience. He told Asharq Al-Awsat: “Even my children did not know that they were the children of the man who carries the secret alias (Sami)... Once, as I was watching and searching for a photo among the evidence on my computer at night, I was surprised that my young son came to me and asked: Dad, why do these people sleep without clothes? In his innocence, he thought they were asleep. It is difficult to make your son live through this pain, so it was necessary for us to protect our children by protecting ourselves.”
Recalling his feelings at the time, he added: “When you make a very serious decision, why make others bear the responsibility for this decision? People you would not have consulted when you left. People who were only a few years old and people who were very old, you would’ve burdened them with fear without asking their permission at a moment when you decided that your responsibility was greater than your love for your family”.
The efforts of “Sami” and “Caesar” resulted in smuggling tens of thousands of photos of the bodies of torture victims out of Syria. The photos were revealed for the first time in 2014 after they left Syria. Today, the photos they smuggled have become part of the “indictment” against the security services that were affiliated with President Bashar al-Assad. In fact, the crimes were not limited to one prison or another. Torture practices were widespread in a way that leaves no doubt that it was a systematic policy adopted by the ruling regime, most likely with cover from the highest levels.
Asharq Al-Awsat asked Sami why he decided to break his silence and reveal his real name. He replied: “The Syrians know the answer to this question. I think the answer is obvious for most Syrians who were inside Syria and those who were outside it. The nature of the work and the nature of the documents that we left Syria with, which went through complex stages and many steps until we reached this blessed day, was the reason I was keen to hide my identity and the identity of many of the team members.
He added: “Today, thank God, we are in a completely different situation. We are in another place. In a new Syria. I wanted the Syrians to know what happened, and I also addressed them and the authorities in Damascus with what we hope the situation will be regarding the legal issues related to documenting and archiving data and evidence that will lead us to a stage of accountability and transitional justice to achieve stability in Syrian society. I think this matter deserves that we come out to tell the world what information and ideas we have so that we do not fall into the same problem in future generations.”
Sami adds: “I did not think, in truth, that I would live to say this word. Congratulations to our people in Syria on the fall of Assad. Congratulations to all the honorable people in this world on the fall of Assad. Thanks to everyone who stood with our revolution and shame on everyone who stood against it. After 14 years of working in secret and facing fear and anxiety, the sun of long-awaited freedom is now shining on Syria, for which our people paid a heavy price. A team of unknown heroes led a complex work full of dangers, that were not solely emanating from the regime. Today, they pledge to Syria to continue defending the dignity of the Syrian human being wherever he may be.”
The importance of accountability
Sami stressed the importance of “accountability” in Syria today, after the overthrow of the former regime, and says: “In this critical moment that Syria is going through as it prepares to enter a new phase after more than five decades of the Assad family rule, we call on the (new) government to work hard to achieve justice, hold perpetrators accountable, and ensure the dignity of human rights as a basis for building a better future that all Syrians dream of.”
He added: “We have witnessed during the past few days, and the rapid events that preceded them, a noticeable increase in the possibility of chaos spreading as a result of the remnants of the Syrian regime. Citizens randomly entering prisons and detention centers have led to the destruction or loss of very important official documents and records that reveal violations dating back decades.” He stressed that “the full responsibility for the destruction of evidence and the loss of the rights of detainees and survivors lies with the security officials of the former regime who have left and those who are still carrying out their duties and responsibilities, in addition to the current forces that are preparing to take power in Damascus. Although what is happening now can be expected after the liberation of the country from the Syrian regime, swift intervention has become urgent in collecting evidence and documents from the previous archives of security institutions, ministries and other government institutions, and this is what raises our concern about the continued work of the regime’s employees, which enables them to obliterate and destroy files of importance in revealing the crimes of the defunct regime.”
Baath Party documents
Sami believes that “all the institutions of the former regime hold documents of extreme importance, whether security, civil or military, and we do not ignore our concern about the obliteration of documents in all the branches and annexes of the Baath Party, which all Syrians know were security institutions par excellence, and those in charge of them practiced all forms of physical and moral intimidation against our great people throughout the years of the revolution.”
He adds: “We hope that this step will be taken with the participation of human rights organizations concerned with following up on issues related to research and investigation into human rights violations. The delay in revealing the official and secret detention sites that may exist in the liberated areas or areas that the armed forces of the Syrian opposition did not reach, in addition to testimonies and information circulating about the transfer of detainees from different prisons to unknown places before the fall of the regime, and the failure to provide the necessary medical and humanitarian assistance to the survivors who were released in the past days, reflects a disregard for the lives of these individuals.”
Sami called on the current authorities to “take immediate and transparent steps to reveal the fate of detainees and victims who died under torture in Syrian prisons and to suspend all those responsible for managing and operating prisons to begin urgently and immediately providing documents that clarify the names and numbers of victims to ensure the families’ right to know the fate of their loved ones. The Syrian people's right to access the truth cannot be compromised and is a duty of all concerned parties. Tolerating perpetrators of crimes under any pretext constitutes a clear violation of humanitarian and legal standards, and gives the green light to reproduce the tools of repression and violations that were practiced by the security services and are still in place.”
The Syrian human rights activist stressed that “achieving justice requires holding accountable all those involved in the crimes committed against the Syrian people, and achieving peace and stability in Syria depends on transitional justice as a fundamental principle at this stage. We call for a national reconciliation based on the principles of justice and accountability that guarantees the rights of all components of the Syrian people in a safe and stable environment that respects their dignity and meets their needs while ensuring that there is no impunity under any name.”
Opposition “imposed” on the people
Sami criticized parties in the Syrian opposition without specifying them, speaking about “failures” they had experienced. He said: “In light of the previous political failures of the opposition that were imposed on the Syrian people, we stress the need to make immediate reassuring statements about the vision and how to involve the people in decision-making and begin the process of building society in a way that respects the will of the Syrian people and guarantees their right to self-determination.”
He called on the current authority to consolidate and facilitate the work of all civil society institutions operating inside and outside Syria. “We also call on all of them to support efforts to achieve transitional justice in Syria effectively and to involve the Syrian people in developments on a regular basis, and to contribute to providing humanitarian and medical support to survivors of arrest and enforced disappearance, and to ensure that all those involved in crimes are held accountable and that impunity is not allowed.”
Sami also called for publishing and disseminating the names of the officers responsible for crimes against the Syrian people, and to monitor official and unofficial crossings, “as well as call on the official Syrian media institutions that have always contributed to the oppression of Syrians by distorting facts and glorifying the killers, to return to their natural function as a tool that strengthens the citizen's confidence in state institutions and a source of correct information”.
He adds: “It pains us to see our people searching for the names of their missing loved ones on social media pages, while state media is absent from performing its mission for which it only exists as a non-politicized service institution."
Crimes without a statute of limitations
Sami stressed that "crimes against humanity and crimes of genocide do not expire with a statute of limitations and cannot be tolerated under any circumstances”. He continues: “The Syria we dream of is a free Syria based on justice and equality. Transitional justice that precedes comprehensive national reconciliation is the only way to build the Syria of the future. We are all hopeful that Syria will be fine now. The Syria that our team left 11 years ago with thousands of tortured faces and disfigured bodies. Hundreds of which were separated from their eyes, who dreamed of being among us today”.
“In one of those faces, I saw the image of my father, mother, brothers and friends. In the darkness of the long nights, I looked at those faces and promised them that we would win." He listed his comrades killed by the regime, Yahya Shorbaji (a human rights activist), Ghiath Matar, Abdullah Othman, Burhan Ghadhban, and Nour al-Din Zaatar, saying: "To all of them, those I knew and those I did not know, may God have mercy on you. We have won (...) and Assad has fallen. May God have mercy on you and may the curse of history be upon Assad."
Unknown Heroes Behind Caesar
Sami refused to provide information about how he and Caesar left Syria and reached Western countries. However, he simply said, in response to a question: “I am Osama Othman, a civil engineer from the Damascus countryside. Many people know me even though I hide under the name (Sami). I had to use it as a shield to protect me during the period of hard work on these complex files that many unknown heroes contributed to creating.”
He added: “I am not the only one. There are many unknown heroes who contributed to getting us to this stage. The Caesar files required tremendous efforts in Europe through the courts, and in the United States through Syrian organizations that made tremendous efforts until they were able to push the US administration to issue what is called the Caesar Act or the Civilian Protection Act.”
