Inside a filthy detention center in Damascus, eight or nine interrogators repeatedly bludgeoned a skinny teenager whose hands were bound and who bore a bullet wound on the left side of his chest. They struck his head, back, feet and genitals until he was left on the floor of a cell, bleeding from his ears and crying out for his mother and father to help him.
Ibrahim Jamal al-Jahamani, a fellow prisoner who said he witnessed the brutal scene in Syria in May, heard the interrogators demand that the 15-year-old proclaim strongman Bashar Assad as his “beloved” president.
The youth, later identified as Tamer Mohammed al-Sharei, refused. He chanted an often-heard slogan from anti-regime street protests calling for “freedom and the love of God and our country.” Tamer’s refusal apparently was the final straw for the interrogators.
“Guards broke his right wrist, beating him with clubs on his hands, which were tied behind his back,” al-Jahamani told The Associated Press after his release from detention.
Tamer and al-Jahamani were two of thousands of Syrians caught up in mass arrests of those suspected of opposing Assad during an uprising that began in March.
Al-Jahamani witnessed the beating from a corridor lined with cells while he was waiting for two hours for the prison guards to take him to his cell. He said the corridor reeked from the stench of blood and dirty toilets and the cell beds were covered in dirty sheets.
At the lockup run by Syria’s Air Force Intelligence, security forces kept Tamer bound and nearly naked, his body covered in blood and bruises, while interrogators broke his forearm and teeth. At one point, a doctor was brought in to revive him, al-Jahamani said.
The next day, the teenager’s screams abruptly stopped; al-Jahamani said he never heard a sound from him again.
Tamer’s case, along with another youth whose body bore signs of brutality, have galvanized thousands of protesters in the face of a crackdown that has killed more than 1,400.
Syria has restricted media coverage, making it impossible to verify events independently. But since the early days of the uprising, al-Jahamani has provided reliable witness accounts that have been confirmed by multiple sources.
Tamer’s death became known in June, when blurry cellphone video showed the teen’s bruised and bullet- pocked body, missing most of his teeth, in a coffin. In one clip, a woman cries: “This is my son! I swear this is my son!”
Al-Jahamani said he saw the video after his release and instantly recognized the dead youth as the teen from the detention center.
