Assad regime threatens ex-prisoner with torture of his family

Syrian man jailed by the Bashar al-Assad regime has haunting memories of unbearable torture and abuse in the interrogation centers.

Jamal Abidin Najjar, a mechanical engineer, was detained while he was traveling from Syria to Lebanon as a warrant had been issued for his arrest by the Assad regime.

Najjar, 33, was held at an interrogation center in Damascus for 60 days.

The interrogation center which is known as "number 235" or "Palestine branch" was established underground in the 1970s for the Palestinians in Syria.

Underlining that he spent two months in a 40-square-meter cell, Najjar said: "There were about 90 people inside including teenagers and elders."

"We were forbidden to talk. Sometimes we could whisper to each other," Najjar said.

Najjar said that everyone in the cell was given a number and prisoners were not allowed to be called by their name.

"One day I was interrogated for about an hour. They hit different parts of my body without talking for the first 10 minutes," Najjar said.

"They told me that I should confess everything otherwise they would torture my family members, including my parents," he added.

Najjar said that electric shock was among the various torture methods he witnessed in the cell.

I was lucky to get out alive of "number 235" where people couldn't survive or got crippled.

Later Najjar immigrated to Berlin, Germany through legal channels.