For ten years, the world was eager to uncover the real identity of two men: “Sami” and “Caesar”, who had smuggled photos of victims of torture in the jails of Syria’s ousted President Bashar al-Assad. Their documentation of the torture led the United States to issue the Caesar Act and for trials against Syrian regime members to be held in Europe.
After Assad’s downfall on December 8, Sami chose to reveal his identity – Osama Othman – to Asharq Al-Awsat. Asharq Al-Awsat sat down with him in Paris to recount how Caesar and Sami were born and their journey from the Damascus countryside to world courts in pursuit of justice.
*How did you feel when you learned that Assad had fled Syria?
The truth is we were denied the joy of seeing Assad personally declare that he was leaving power. He never announced his resignation or that he was leaving the country. He simply got on a plane and left Syria. His ouster was not confirmed by a decisive moment, but we had to wait several days for confirmation that he was indeed no longer in Syria and that Syria was now “free Syria” not “Assad’s Syria.” So, our joy took place over stages and an extended period of days that were tinged with hope, fear and anticipation.
*What was your partner Caesar’s reaction to the news?
I haven’t been able to contact Caesar because we were so frantic to confirm that Assad had indeed been toppled and because we were waiting to see what happens next. The truth is that the rapid unfolding of developments and my concerns prevented me from contacting Caesar. This is the moment that we have been waiting for and it has finally been realized. I will use your platform to say to him: “We made it, Caesar.” We achieved what we had sought out to accomplish. We have toppled Assad. “Sami” and Caesar” didn’t do it, but it is the blood of the martyrs in the jails and outside of them. It is the efforts of all Syrians who paid so dearly in blood to reach this moment. We are free. Syria is free.
*So you feel that your work over those long years has not gone to waste?
I believe that the Syrian people have paid a greater price than what a criminal like Assad deserved. He hadn’t remained in his position for all those years due to his intelligence, strength or love of his people. We all know that he remained in power through his regime’s oppressive security apparatus, his allies and all members of his criminal militias, which he brought to Syria to slaughter the people and rob the country.
*Are Assad’s allies partners in the torture?
Assad’s partners are partners in Syria’s destruction. In my position in a rights organization with scores of files on detainees killed under torture, I cannot pin blame on this side or that without evidence. But logically, of course, they were partners in killing everyone who was killed in Syria. They are responsible for every drop of blood spilled. Assad’s allies are partners in his. Everyone who raised their hand at the United Nations Security Council to veto a resolution that liberates the Syrians from Assad’s rule and oppressive regime are complicit as well.
The First Photo
*When did you get the idea to gather the evidence of torture in Syrian jails?
It was during the early days of the revolution, perhaps May 2011. I agreed with Caesar to gather photos that he had obtained and which he had told me at the time showed evidence of extreme torture. Before the revolution, the department concerned with gathering legal evidence received photos of accidents involving members of state and security institutions and the army. The photos were taken regularly and routinely.
When the revolution erupted, photos emerged of people who had come under extreme torture and it was evident that they had not died under normal circumstances or in an accident. At this point Caesar did not want to be involved in even capturing these atrocities. He wanted to distance himself completely from this criminal machine, either by defecting, which would have exposed him or his family to extreme danger or by somehow retiring or resigning from the army.
During this time, my memory of the people who had gone missing in the 1982 Hama massacre was still raw. There are thousands of cases of missing people whose death or detention the state has never acknowledged. Under the law, they are deemed missing, which created a lot of legal problems for families. This was a major problem that had persisted for decades. So, I thought about how gathering evidence would provide our Syrian people proof of what happened to their loved ones, who had been detained during protests, on the streets or during raids.
Despite how horrific the situation was, it would at least provide clear legal evidence and offer the families some form of relief. Relief as in they would no longer live in agony of not knowing whether their loved ones are alive or not.
We decided to gather the data. Since the Egyptian and Tunisian revolts were only a few months in at the time, we believed that the Syrian revolution would perhaps end in a few months as well and we would be able to reveal these documents to our people in Syria. But the months stretched on and the regime grew more brutal and scores of Syrians were killed. We started to routinely collect the documents, not thinking about what we would do with them next. We lived in fear of the regime attacks and its random raids.
*How did you respond when Caesar showed you the first photo? You had to make a choice, either forget about it or forge ahead. What did you feel in that moment?
You can expect anything from the Syrian regime. We were mentally prepared from the start to confront this criminal regime. The arrests and deaths under torture were nothing new to the regime and to us. What was new was the rate of the killing, which reached dozens daily. Caesar would take photos of a large number of corpses every day. The regime had for decades committed these crimes against the Syrian people, but the difference was that today, we had the technology to collect evidence.
*What did you say to Caesar when you first saw the photos?
At first, I was worried about Caesar because he could at any moment become a victim like those in his photos. I told him that we must collect these photos. Caesar’s job at the military allowed him to collect a lot of data that would help us. We didn’t believe at the time that the issue would develop into a global case to criminally pursue the regime.
*How did Caesar feel about this?
Caesar had two choices: either quit his job, which would expose him and his relatives to danger, or find a legal way out of his work. However, he believed that quitting wouldn’t do us or our people justice. Obviously, I didn’t pressure Caesar into continuing his work. We made the decision together out of our conviction. We shared the danger, concerns and work.
*Did you think that your actions could cost you your life at any moment?
The Assad regime was a threat and danger to every human being in Syria, whether they had done anything wrong or not. We were under constant danger, even before the revolution erupted. It is the revolt that helped speed up the process of collecting evidence and exposing the regime’s crimes.
What we did was archive the data, which defintely came with its risks. But, amid the revolt, everyone was paying in blood for freedom, so I never thought that what I am doing was more dangerous than what everyone else was going through. On the contrary, I thought I was playing my own role in this uprising.
Team Grows
*So at the beginning it was just you and Caesar?
In the first months, yes. We kept our work secret from our families. Afterwards, we had to build a team around us to protect me and Caesar and provide assistance that would prevent the data, should one or both of us get killed, from being lost. The team began to expand after two or three months.
*How did you maintain secrecy?
Secrecy was not absolute. I can’t claim to have been surrounded by complete secrecy at the beginning. Before we left the country, only six people, including my brother and Caesar, knew about what we were doing. My wife, of course, knew. In the end, it was seven people.
Missing Eyes
*Where was the first photo taken from?
The photos came from the legal evidence department at the military police branch, meaning the victims in the photos were killed under torture at the security branches across Damascus. There were no photos that indicated the victims were from Seydnaya prison.
*What was the most brutal branch? Did torture differ from one branch to another?
When I started sorting the photos according to which branch they came from, I realized that around 50 percent of the victims came from “Branch 215.” At another branch, 227, I noticed that the majority of the victims had missing eyes. I can’t say that the eyes were removed or became decomposed after death. Insects were eating the eyes in their sockets. This was evident in a large number of photos. Perhaps the decomposition of the body made it seem that eyes were missing or maybe the insects were what ate them.
*Where the victims shot dead or killed by sharp objects?
I leave this for the experts. I may have my own opinion, but since this is a legal file, I won’t say it. German authorities have a full copy of the file and they are examining the data. When I say that the data incriminates Assad, my statements are worthless because I don't have the legal expertise. So, I sought to keep the files away from the media and political debates and entrusted them to German and French authorities. I gave them my testimony so that if anything happens to Sami and Caesar, the information will not be lost.
One Woman
*Were there woman and children among the victims?
We found one woman only. As for the children, we found many under the age of 18. Not just that. We also found patients. It was evident that they were taken out of hospitals or were killed while they were receiving treatment. I cannot be conclusive, but you can see medical equipment, such as tubes in arms, catheters, serum bags, and others, still attached to the body. This was all evidence that they were receiving some form of treatment.
*Were there any labels on the victims after they were killed? How did they give a cause of death?
They would simply state “death of detainee numbered so and so”. That’s all.
*So no cause of death is given?
I will leave this to Caesar to explain himself when he chooses to reveal himself. This is at the heart of his work at the military departments.
*How many photos have been obtained?
There could be up to six photos taken of a single victim, based on their injuries or physical traits. So we have some 27,000 photos of some 7,000 victims.
Leaving Syria
*When did you stop collecting evidence?
By the end of 2013, the situation had grown too dangerous for the people involved. We could have stayed and collected more, but weighing the danger, we believed it was best to get out of Syria before being busted and losing all the work we accomplished and even our families.
I was not wanted by the regime, so I was able to normally leave Syria to Lebanon in the end of 2013. My family and Caesar left Syria soon after and we ended our work of documenting the victims. We don’t have anything from after September 2013. I spent less than two weeks in Beirut. I managed to get our families and Caesar out of Syria. We eventually settled for a while in Qatar.
Caesar never accompanied me when I left. It was just me and another person. Caesar was still at his job in Syria when I left. He never went to Beirut. I will leave it to him to answer how he left Syria.
*What happened in Qatar?
I was in Doha with Caesar and others. We verified again that this man was indeed working for the regime’s military institution and that these photos were genuine and not fakes. This was before I handed the file to the German authorities. This was the beginning of “Sami” and “Caesar”.
Caesar is the “king witness” as they say in Arabic. The term seemed a bit long. One of the gatherers suggested “Caesar” as in king, and so it was. The gatherers said I also needed a name. I chose “Sami” after a dear close friend, who I haven’t seen in 15 years. Sami is an easy name in different languages.
After Doha, I headed to Türkiye and then Europe.
*Did you receive any support from countries or organizations?
We never received any such support. At that time, we were working with a group of Syrian dissidents and we never came in contact with our hosts in Qatar or elsewhere. We are simply people who are not part of any organization.
When we arrived in Europe, we sensed the burden we were carrying. Soon after, the world started to become less interested in Syria and the regime started to reclaim territory after Russia’s intervention. At that moment, I asked myself: why did I take on such dangers? Why did I expose my relatives to them? What was the point? Was the point heading to Europe where I would become a refugee? This is not why I did all of this and this is not what I want for myself and my children. I sensed that my mission and goals were slipping away from me, so I decided to take action.
I contacted French authorities and informed them that I wanted them to have a copy of the file. I said I wanted to testify before the war crimes court and so it was. But it turned out that France could do nothing if the criminal or victim weren’t French or residing on its territories. Germany did so and so we took our case to it.
Our work was based on consolidating a main principle that the regime was criminal and had committed human rights violations and genocide. We were also motivated by preventing the regime from being allowed to polish its images in any way, shape or form, regardless of the developments in Syria. We threw a wrench in efforts to normalize ties with the regime. So, for years, the “Caesar file” was the main obstacle for the regime to end its international isolation.
Caesar Act
*Whose idea was it to go to the United States?
We never had plans to go to the US, but some Syrian organizations working there pressured us into presenting the case to the American administration. I was persuaded that Barack Obama’s administration was not interested in even opening the file due to an incident when I was in Jordan. At the time, some of the earliest photos of the file were sent to the State Department through a defected Syrian lawmaker. The State Department never showed any form of interest in the issue.
Around a year later, the Syrian groups in the US pressured us to approach Washington. They knew how things worked in the administration and how to use this file to make a difference, even if the man in the White House didn’t want to. It was a long battle we waged with our Syrian brothers in the US that was crowned with the issuing of the “Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act”, or “Caesar Act”.
*Do you believe the Caesar Act helped curb the work of the regime?
We may have to examine closely what impact the Act had on the regime, but it certainly made it difficult for it to rebuild its military machine. It was still able to support its forces and Shabiha (thugs), even the militias it brought in from other countries, to commit more killing and exercise more oppression in Syria.
In the end, this is an American law that meets the interests of the Syrian people in several aspects. I don’t want to say that the Caesar Act was the sole crowning achievement of the Caesar file. Several great efforts were exerted by Syrian organizations in the US and the file was named in honor of this man.
*The interview continues on Wednesday.
