Syrian Jails Were an Extortion Machine Funding Ousted Rulers

This picture shows empty cells at the Saydnaya prison, north of the Syrian capital Damascus, on December 15, 2024. (AFP)
This picture shows empty cells at the Saydnaya prison, north of the Syrian capital Damascus, on December 15, 2024. (AFP)
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Syrian Jails Were an Extortion Machine Funding Ousted Rulers

This picture shows empty cells at the Saydnaya prison, north of the Syrian capital Damascus, on December 15, 2024. (AFP)
This picture shows empty cells at the Saydnaya prison, north of the Syrian capital Damascus, on December 15, 2024. (AFP)

Ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's vast network of prisons was not simply a tool of his brutal crackdown on opposition to his rule, it was a money-making machine for his supporters.

Desperate Syrians, clinging to the dream of seeing missing sons, husbands and sisters again, say they were systematically shaken down for bribes that together amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars.

And, worse, in many cases the assorted officials, lawyers, grifters and Assad clan hangers-on demanding the cash failed to deliver news of the detainees, many tens of thousands of whom are now dead, rights monitors say.

Sanaa Omar, a 38-year-old woman from the northern city of Aleppo, came to the capital Damascus seeking news of her brother Mohammed, who went missing when he was 15.

"My brother has been missing since 2011," she told AFP at a city hospital morgue where opposition fighters had deposited unidentified corpses found in Damascus prisons.

"We looked in all of the prisons in Aleppo, in all of the branches. We paid everyone: lawyers would promise us they knew where he was and said they would bring documents, but they never did.

"My dad would go every year to Damascus and meet with lawyers or people who would say they work with the government. They would take 200,000 or 300,000 or 400,000 (Syrian pounds) and we'd pay them," she said.

"They'd say: 'You'll see him in month'. We'd wait for one month, two months, three months... but they never brought us a visitor's pass. We paid them for nearly five years, but in the end, we lost hope."

Two years ago, before last week's dramatic collapse of the Assad's rule in the face of a lightning offensive by opposition fighters, a rights group tried to estimate how much detainees' families had paid over the years.

- Abandoned ledgers -

The Association of Detainees and Missing Persons at Saydnaya prison carried out hundreds of interviews to ask how much families had paid in return for the promise of information, a visit or a release from jail.

Based on its data, the association estimated that government officials and supporters had made almost $900 million. Hundreds of thousands of people have been detained since protests erupted against Assad's rule in early 2011.

Now, 13 years later, the gates of Saydnaya Prison, a grim, grey-walled complex squatting over an arid valley dotted with plush villas 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of Damascus, hang open.

Instead of paying officials or intermediaries for scraps of information, relatives leaf desperately through abandoned ledgers looking for news of the missing.

"I'm looking for my brother. He's been in Saydnaya since 2019," said Hassan Hashem, a thickset young man who came from the city of Hama in a last desperate attempt to find answers.

"My brother used to come and visit him, but they took him a year ago for re-investigation at Branch 28. After that we tried to follow him and people were taking money from us for information.

"'He'll get out today. He'll get out tomorrow.' We paid more than $12,000. He's married and has four daughters. He never did anything wrong," Hashem said, his face darkening with anger.

When his brother, convicted of "international terrorism and bearing arms against the state", was moved to the Mazzeh air base in Damascus, the family was put in touch with the relative of a senior regime official.

"He said they'd need $100,000 to get him out. I told him if I sold my entire village I wouldn't make $100,000. Where am I supposed to get that kind of money?"

Now awed civilians and armed opposition fighters wander Saydnaya's cell-lined concrete halls, kicking over the filthy abandoned sleeping mats that show inmates were packed 20 to a cell.

Rescuers have punched holes in walls to investigate rumors of secret levels housing missing prisoners, but many thousands of families are disappointed -- their relatives are probably dead and may never be found.

- Mother's Day promise -

On the ground floor of one wing, fighters and visitors pause in front of a hydraulic press that former detainees say was used to crush prisoners during torture sessions.

The floor of a neighboring room, with more industrial equipment, is slick with foul-smelling grease.

Ayoush Hassan, 66, came from the Aleppo countryside to find her son.

"A month ago, I paid 300,000 Syrian pounds for them to check his record, and they said he is in Saydnaya and is in good health," she told AFP outside the jail, her anger rising as despair gripped her.

"Not here. Not here. He's not with us!" she cried, describing how she had found court records burnt, and as a crowd gathered to hear of her grief.

"We want our children, alive, dead, burned, ashes, buried in mass graves... just tell us," she said.

"They lied to us. We've been living on hope. We've been living on hope for 13 years, thinking he'll get out this month, in the next two months or this year or on Mother's Day... it's all lies."



Türkiye and Russia Engage in Delicate Maneuvers over Syria after Assad’s Downfall

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan shake hands as they pose for photos during a meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, on July 3, 2024. (Sergey Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan shake hands as they pose for photos during a meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, on July 3, 2024. (Sergey Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
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Türkiye and Russia Engage in Delicate Maneuvers over Syria after Assad’s Downfall

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan shake hands as they pose for photos during a meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, on July 3, 2024. (Sergey Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan shake hands as they pose for photos during a meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, on July 3, 2024. (Sergey Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

The rapid downfall of Syrian leader Bashar Assad has touched off a new round of delicate geopolitical maneuvering between Russia's Vladimir Putin and Türkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
With the dust still settling from the stunning events in Damascus, the outcome for now seems to be favoring Ankara, which backed the victorious opposition factions, while Moscow suffered a bruising blow to its international clout.
“In the game of Czars vs. Sultans, this is Sultans 1 and Czars 0,” said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute. “Far from being allies, Türkiye and Russia are competitors. And in this case, Türkiye has outsmarted Russia.”
The Assad regime’s demise opens another chapter in the complex relationship between Putin and Erdogan, with wide-ranging implications not just for Syria but also for Ukraine and the two leaders' ties with Washington.
Russia and Türkiye share economic and security interests — along with an intense rivalry. The personal relationship between Putin and Erdogan often sees them both praising each other, even as they jockey for political and economic gains.
“There are currently only two leaders left in the world -- there is me and there is Vladimir Putin,” Erdogan said recently, reflecting the respect for the Kremlin leader. Putin, in turn, has often praises Erdogan’s political prowess.
Conflicts and deals Russia and Türkiye backed opposing sides in Syria’s civil war that started in 2011, putting them on a collision course. Tensions spiraled when a Turkish fighter jet shot down a Russian warplane near the Türkiye-Syria border in November 2015, soon after Moscow launched its air campaign to support Assad.
The Kremlin responded with sweeping economic sanctions that halted Turkish imports, drove Turkish companies from the lucrative Russian market and cut the flow of Russian tourists to Türkiye’s resorts.
Faced with massive economic damage, Erdogan apologized months later. Soon after, Putin staunchly supported him when he faced an attempted military coup in July 2016, helping to warm ties quickly.
In 2018, Moscow and Ankara negotiated a ceasefire and de-escalation deal for the opposition-held Idlib province in northwestern Syria on the border with Türkiye and sought to anchor the often-violated agreement with follow-up deals in the next few years.
But even as they cooperated on Syria, Moscow and Ankara also vied for influence in Libya, where Russia supported forces loyal to military commander Khalifa Hifter while Türkiye backed his Tripoli-based foes. Türkiye also aggressively sought to increase its leverage in the former Soviet Central Asian nations competing with Russia and China.
In 2020, Moscow backed off when Türkiye’s ally Azerbaijan routed ethnic Armenian forces in the fighting over the breakaway region of Karabakh. Even though Armenia hosted a Russian military base, the Kremlin has engaged in a delicate balancing act, seeking to maintain warm ties with both Azerbaijan and Türkiye.
While their political interests often clashed, economic ties boomed, with Russia boosting natural gas exports to Türkiye via a Black Sea pipeline; by building Türkiye’s first nuclear plant; and by providing the NATO member with advanced air defense systems — to Washington’s dismay.
Relations amid the war in Ukraine
Ties with Türkiye grew even more important for Putin after he invaded Ukraine in 2022, Europe’s largest conflict since World War II.
The West responded with economic sanctions that barred Russia from most Western markets, restricted its access to international financial system, shut transport routes and halted exports of key technologies. Türkiye, which didn’t join the sanctions, has emerged as Russia’s key gateway to global markets, strengthening Erdogan’s hand in negotiations with Putin.
While Türkiye backed Ukraine’s territorial integrity and supplied Kyiv with weapons, Erdogan echoed Putin in accusing the US and NATO of fomenting the conflict. Putin has praised Erdogan for offering to mediate a settlement.
In March 2022, Türkiye hosted Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul that soon collapsed, with both Putin and Erdogan blaming the West for their failure.
Later that year, Ankara pooled efforts with the United Nations to broker a deal that opened the door for Ukrainian grain exports from its Black Sea ports, an agreement that helped drive down global food prices before falling apart the following year.
Türkiye’s balancing act in Ukraine is driven by its dependence on the vast Russian market, supplies of natural gas and a flow of tourists.
Russia’s focus on Ukraine has eroded its clout in regions where Türkiye and other players have tried to take advantage of Moscow's withering influence.
In September 2023, Azerbaijan reclaimed control over all of Karabakh in an one-day blitz while Russian regional peacekeepers stood back. That hurt Russia’s ties with Armenia, which has shifted increasingly toward the West.
Moscow's new look at Syria
Focused on Ukraine, Russia had few resources left for Syria at a time when Hezbollah similarly pulled back its fighters amid the war with Israel and Iranian support for Assad also weakened.
Russia tried to sponsor talks on normalizing relations between Türkiye and Syria, but Assad stonewalled them, refusing any compromise.
Assad’s intransigence helped trigger the Türkiye-backed opposition’s offensive in November. The underfunded and demoralized Syrian army quickly crumbled, allowing the opposition to sweep across the country and capture Damascus.
Even as it has offered asylum to Assad and his family, Russia has reached out to Syria's new leaders, seeking to ensure security for its troops still there and extend leases on its naval and air bases.
At his annual news conference Thursday, Putin said Russia offered Syria's new leaders to use the bases for humanitarian aid deliveries and suggested Moscow could offer other incentives.
While Assad's demise dealt a heavy blow to Russia, some believe Moscow could navigate the rapidly changing environment to retain at least some clout.
“Syria’s opposition forces well understand that the country’s future is uncertain,” said Nikolay Kozhanov, a consulting fellow with Chathan House’s Russia and Eurasia program, in a commentary. “They want Russia, if not as a friend, then a neutral party.”
He noted that “Moscow’s main goal will be to maintain at least a minimal level of influence through a military presence, for example, at its existing bases, or through contacts with other regional players, such as Türkiye.”
Cagaptay observed that while Türkiye would like to see an end to Russia’s military presence in Syria, Ankara’s position will depend on how relations evolve with Washington.
“If we see a reset in US-Turkish ties where Türkiye thinks it can comfortably lean on the U.S. against Russia, I can see Erdogan adopting a kind of more boisterous tone vis a vis Putin,” he said.
But if the US maintains its alliance with the Kurds and stands against Türkiye’s effort to push back on Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria, “Ankara may decide that it needs to continue to play all sides as it has been doing for about a decade now,” Cagaptay said.
Putin noted Russia understands Türkiye’s motives in securing its borders, but he also warned that the Kurds could offer strong resistance if attacked.
Emre Ersen, a Russia expert at Istanbul’s Marmara University, also noted that while Assad’s fall will diminish Moscow’s influence, “the relationship between Türkiye and Russia will not be devastated by the events in Syria.”
“Obviously, they still need to reach out to each other regarding the crisis in Ukraine, but also because they have very significant economic relations,” Ersen said, adding that Erdogan could be expected to seek more concessions from Russia on energy and trade issues.