ICC Note: A local Syrian news source reporting on the death of a Syrian military leader in Aleppo includes statements of victims who suffered torture at his hands. According to Enab Baladi, the Lt. Col. had at times made public statements against Christianity which shows that he saw Christians as a vulnerable demographic to be exploited by the regime. Christians in Syria are increasingly targeted by all sides of the conflict, causing many to simply leave the country.

06/09/2018 Syria (Enab Baladi) –  The Lieutenant Colonel Somar Zidan’s, an officer at the “Political Security” Directorate in Aleppo, death news has gone viral on “Facebook,” triggering this social media platform’s magical power of revealing and documenting the truth and its ability to bring together victims and their executioners.

Gabriel K, now based in Europe, is one of Somar’s victims when he was yet in his city of Aleppo, Syria, describes the manner through which he learned about the death news: “It was a mere coincidence. I found the Lieutenant Somar’s picture on Facebook. Somar who enjoyed torturing people, my friend and I included, in the Political Security Directorate [. . .]. There under the picture, died, was written.”

When he tortured Gabriel, Somar was a Lieutenant. When he was killed, he became a Lieutenant Colonel. While dead, he was upgraded to the level of Honorary Colonel, applying the military rule which necessitates upgrading the Syrian army’s officers to honorary ranks after their death.

Both the picture and the news take Gabriel back many years in time, to painful moments and to his city Aleppo, which he was compelled to flee after being tortured by Zidan:

“Looking at his picture, I could hear his voice. It is just weird that he was keen to post pictures in which he laughed only, though I was sure that he spent the last seven years of his life and by virtue of his work, which he mastered and sadistically enjoyed, among the bodies of the people, who he tortured, beat and humiliated. It is bizarre that he did not post a single picture of his true self on Facebook, one that shows his daily life and personality.”

Gabriel continues to unfold his story, showing a great humanitarian sense and awareness of the monstrosity of torture as a crime and its role in the destruction of human beings and homeland:

“Lieutenant Somar Zidan, from the Political Security Directorate, who tortured me for long hours in his room [. . .] a part of me wished to meet him at the court, before he dies. I wanted to face him without a tool of torture in his hand, without chains, electricity cables or canes [. . .] and to tell him how criminal he was against us as humans, against our country, future and life, which he destroyed with other criminals like himself.”

On “Facebook,” Basem S has also made a testimony of what Somar has done to him:

“Somar arrested me in 2012 and supervised my torture at the beginning of the investigation [. . .] He appropriated my Citroën car and drove it for four years. That night, he got me out and took all my clothes off. Then he hanged me from the ceiling by the wrists, [a method called shabeh], and started to beat me with an iron pipe, which he called Lakhdar Brahimi.”

Basem lost conscience and woke up in the cell all in blood.

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