Montag, 24.12.2018 / 14:09 Uhr

Massenexekutionen in syrischem Gefängnis

Von
Thomas von der Osten-Sacken

Ba'ath Partei ist Ba'ath Partei. Ob im Irak oder Syrien. Genau so ging es unter Saddam Hussein auch zu: Da gab es jeden Montag die Säuberungen in Abu Ghraib. Ich habe später mit Überlebenden gesprochen, wie es am Tag davor war, als die Geheimdienstler durchs Gefängnis gingen und die Todeskandidaten auswählten.

Und einmal war so eine Säuberung sogar das "Geburtstagsgeschenk" Qusays an seinen Vater.

Eine Erinnerung an diese Zeiten:

By 9pm, 2,000 inmates had been killed. Janabi defends his role in the murders as being under institutional duress.'The executions themselves were carried out by prison specialists, but what was the governor to do? How could he argue when the place was surrounded by Qusay's armed men? One has to accept such a situation. We were, after all, under orders...'

In Syrien gehen sie genau so vor. Jetzt, wo sie den Krieg de facto gewonnen haben. Bei diesen Typen gilt: Vae Victis! Besonderns brutal werden sie, wenn ihre Gegner geschlagen sind.

"In interviews, more than two dozen Syrians recently released from the Sednaya military prison in Damascus described a government campaign to clear the decks of political detainees. The former inmates said prisoners are being transferred from jails across Syria to join death-row detainees in Sednaya’s basement and then be executed in pre-dawn hangings.

Yet despite these transfers, the population of Sednaya’s once-packed cells — which at their peak held an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 inmates — has dwindled largely because of the unyielding executions, and at least one section of the prison is almost entirely empty, the former detainees said.

Some of the former prisoners had themselves been sentenced to hang, escaping that fate only after relatives paid tens of thousands of dollars to secure their freedom. Others described overhearing conversations between guards relating to the transfer of prisoners to their death. The men all spoke on the condition that their full names not be disclosed out of fear for their families’ safety."