The investigative project “Damascus Files,” based on more than 134,000 Syrian security and intelligence records obtained by the German broadcaster NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and 24 media outlets, reveals an “unprecedented” picture of the killing machine built by the former Syrian regime.
Published by ICIJ on Thursday, 4 December, the investigation documents the killing of more than ten thousand detainees through testimonies, death certificates, and thousands of photographs taken by military photographers of the bodies of detainees who died under torture or neglect in prisons.
To interpret what these images show, a team of journalists from ICIJ, NDR, and the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung analyzed a random sample of 540 photographs. They found that three out of four victims showed signs of starvation, almost two thirds bore visible marks of physical abuse, and roughly half of the bodies were naked and left on the floor or on metal sheets.
The investigation, which lasted for more than eight months, involved organizing and analyzing the data, consulting experts, and conducting interviews with Syrian families still searching for the fate of loved ones who disappeared into the grip of the security services.
Despite this body of evidence, each photograph, according to the investigation, also reflects the suffering of at least one family that is still looking for an answer in a country whose regime has changed, but where the layers of silence accumulated over thousands of crimes have not been lifted.
ICIJ and NDR interviewed seven families that confirmed the deaths of their relatives through the documents. Some of them received, through Damascus Files, the first official proof of the death of a family member. NDR also shared the name lists contained in the files with four non governmental and intergovernmental organizations, in the hope that they will help uncover the fate of others.
Data spanning three decades
The investigation is based on more than 134,000 Arabic language files, about 243 gigabytes of data, spanning from the mid 1990s until December 2024. The records come from Air Force Intelligence, the General Intelligence Directorate, and other security agencies.
The material includes internal memos, reports, and correspondence that clarify the day to day workings of the regime’s surveillance and arrest network. It also contains information about coordination with external allies such as Russia and Iran, and with UN agencies operating inside Syria, as well as the names of investigators and former officers in the Syrian intelligence services.
NDR also obtained more than 70,000 additional files and images, including 33,000 high resolution photographs documenting the killing of more than 10,200 detainees between 2015 and 2024.
Damascus Files consists of two datasets NDR received in 2025 from two different sources.
The primary source of the photographs was the head of the “Evidence Preservation Unit” in the Military Police in Damascus between 2020 and 2024. He copied the files onto a hard drive and secured it during the revolution, he says, with the intention of exposing the regime’s crimes, and the data reached NDR through intermediaries.
The investigation team compiled lists totaling more than 1,500 names of people whom the former Syrian regime detained or who died inside its detention facilities.
The German Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Syrian Center for Legal Studies also obtained the images independently.
A machine of disappearance
The documents show that the former regime did not merely kill detainees, it also worked systematically to conceal the traces of these crimes. The files also reveal a “grim bureaucratic side”, as investigators found that most death certificates were signed by doctors at Harasta Military Hospital, in the Damascus countryside, and at Tishreen Military Hospital in Damascus, both “notorious for ill treatment of prisoners.”
A doctor who previously worked at Harasta told NDR that the forms were pre prepared, and that doctors were asked to sign them without knowing the real circumstances of death.
The new government closes the archives
In the early days of the post Assad period, the new authorities allowed citizens to photograph documents inside security branches, while banning the removal of original files, according to the investigation. As their “grip” on power solidified, they shut the archives completely.
Although an official committee was formed to investigate the fate of the disappeared, families say they have not received a single answer to their most basic question, “Where are our children?”
Closing the archives has withheld both the names of victims and the names of those involved in the violations, stoking fears among families and activists that the truth will be buried and the opportunity lost to hold criminals linked to the deposed Assad regime to account, the investigation says.
Caesar photos
The investigation brings back into focus the same scenes of horror, parts of which emerged more than a decade ago with the “Caesar” photos, leaked by a military photographer who defected from the regime in 2013.
“Caesar” was the code name of a Syrian officer who defected from the Syrian regime and leaked 55,000 photographs of 11,000 detainees in 2014, killed under torture. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed the authenticity of the images, which sparked global outrage and culminated in the United States passing the “Caesar Act,” which entered into force on 17 June 2020.
On 6 February, Farid al-Madhhan revealed his identity and face for the first time, after years of being known only as “Caesar.”
In an interview with Al Jazeera’s program “The Rest of the Story,” Caesar announced that he is Master Sergeant Farid al-Madhhan, head of the forensic evidence office in the Military Police in Damascus.
96,000 forcibly disappeared
The number of people forcibly disappeared in the prisons of the Assad regime from March 2011 until August 2025 stands at 96,321, including 2,329 children and 5,742 women, according to figures from the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR).
SNHR estimated the number of detainees released from regime prisons after opposition forces took control of cities at around 29,000 detainees and forcibly disappeared persons, including hundreds of children and women. This figure includes people imprisoned for criminal offenses as well as those forcibly disappeared.
There are no statistics on the number of forcibly disappeared persons who have been released, nor an estimate of how many of the forcibly disappeared are among those freed from the various prisons, including those jailed for ordinary criminal reasons.
SNHR’s documentation may also not have captured all those forcibly disappeared in the regime’s detention centers.
Nour al-Khatib, SNHR’s communications officer, explained that the network did not expect large numbers of forcibly disappeared persons to be released, due to several indicators suggesting that the regime disposed of many of them, including:
Death records that the regime registered in civil registry offices, with SNHR continuously obtaining thousands of such entries through sources in registry departments across the country. Data on individuals who were executed, both individually and collectively. Amnesty decrees that released only very small numbers of detainees or forcibly disappeared persons.
Investigation documents killing of more than 10,000 detainees in Assad’s prisons Enab Baladi.
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