Unbearable, this photograph is part of a set of 54,000 copies 11 000 prisoners died under torture and deprivation in a "center" of the regime of Bashar al Assad. (Photo CD)
STORY
Exfiltré abroad and held incommunicado, a former member of the Syrian intelligence has released 54,000 pictures appalling.

Nothing is known of him. Neither his name nor his age, nor the country where he is hiding. It simply a pseudonym Caesar. Only those who have managed to smuggle out of Syria and some international investigators know where his hideout. Caesar is one of the world's most threatened men. For good reason: it was he who said the unsayable, showed the form of thousands of pictures he made ​​himself working for the regime of Bashar al-Assad in one of the 24 torture centers of Damascus and its region. In total, 54 000 pictures 11 000 prisoners died under torture and deprivation. Snapshots that show such cruelty David Crane, the former prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and now principal investigator of a report on torture in Syria, said Thursday in Paris that they forced us "to believe the unbelievable."

Initially, Caesar works in a unit of Information documentation of Air Force. Created by Hafez al-Assad, is the most terrible of six main secret police. This is where he photographed the bodies of all those who die under torture or starvation. He was soon contacted by a network that seeks to return to the regime's agents they reveal these crimes. This is great Caesar is horrified by what he sees. He thinks to escape. But the network convinced him to stay in office to continue his work.

Torn. These photos are for the regime, the equivalent of a death certificate. If it is not afraid to show these bodies horribly broken, hungry and torn torture, burning flesh, eyes gouged out, is that, said David Crane, "at no time, the system will think it to account. "For two years, Caesar will therefore divert via the memory card from the camera, thousands of shots until the suspicions begin to arise against him. The exfiltration becomes necessary.

Two members of the Syrian National Movement are doing so. One of them, Imadeddine Rachid, is Professor of Law at the University of Damascus. Looking at the pictures, it has recognized the body "completely emaciated" one of his students. "I could not prevent parents who believe their son still alive," says he.

It is the summer of 2013 that the leak Caesar abroad is organized. "We did pass for dead in the eyes of the regime and organized fake funeral," says Rachid Imadeddine. Not knowing where to turn, he and his friend, Hassan Chalabi, who is the brain of the exfiltration, contact Qatar, declared enemy of Damascus, and the Carter-Ruck British law firm. Miscalculation because Damascus had beautiful game screaming manipulation. At issue: some pictures are published on the eve of the Geneva Conference and the firm has not served as honorable causes.

Doubt. Thursday and Rachid Chalabi, both exfiltrateurs appeared openly in the presence of David Crane, the judge who helped convict former Liberian President Charles Taylor to fifty years in prison. For Crane, these photos "could not be falsified" and thus leave no doubt that the regime perpetuates "crimes against humanity". Therefore, it intends to prepare a case against against Al-Assad and other Syrian leaders: "With forensic experts, we examined 6,000 photos» on 54000 memory card "Caesar" and "believe me it's really horrible."

"We believe that 11,000 people were tortured," and were executed "in a way that we had not seen since the Auschwitz extermination camp," said the American lawyer who seems to have forgotten atrocities committed under the Khmer Rouge. Crane has told that sometimes the tortured slowly being strangled "so that they die several times." "We need to remember them and honor the memories," he has said. But, with the exception of the first 23 victims, who wore a name written on a sticker, the body does have a number. Now the plan is more cautious. The bodies of dead Syrians under torture are given to families in sealed coffins, with a ban on open.

To read the Amnesty International report on torture in Syria: "I wanted to die."

Jean-Pierre Perrin