Written by Muayyad Al-Ashqar and translated by Jihad Al-Haj.
“If it was a criminal case of murder, theft, orevenrugs, I would have released him immediately, but the case is related to weapons,” replied the Attorney General at the Palace of Justice in Hama at that time to the mediation put forward by the family of Abdullah Diab, who has been detained in Syrian government prisons since 2015.
Abdullah’s mother – in her fifties – says that a state security patrol, which was based at the Iron Bridge at the entrance to Al-Qusour neighborhood, raided their house several times to arrest her son, but they did not find him until they arrested him as he was entering the house after one of the neighborhood residents who cooperated with security informed on him.
Abdullah’s mother explains the incident to us, her eyes welling up with tears. After they raided the house and arrested Abdullah, they placed various types of weapons and hand grenades in the courtyard of the house, took pictures of them, and left. Since then, we have been searching from one branch to another for news about him.
In 2015, Abdullah was in his second year of dental school in Hama. At that time, he was distributing leaflets during strikes or when mobilizing for a particular cause. It seems that his colleague, who was arrested for a comment he made on Facebook, informed them about Abdullah. They then inquired about his home from informants there until they arrested him.
In the beginning, the family consulted one of the lawyers for the case, and he advised them at that time to solve it through money before it was transferred from the State Security branch to the branch in Damascus. Indeed, they reached the concerned party, who is a colonel in state security, and agreed on a sum of money for his release.
Abu Abdullah – a sixty-year-old man, says that they did not bring any sign from Abdullah proving that he is alive or that he is still with them. After that, they communicated with the public prosecutor through financial mediation to look into his case. At that time, he withdrew his hands from the case and said that he could not intervene in weapon cases.
Abdullah’s family lived many years of loss and clinging to lifelines between one broker and another in the security branches until Abu Abdullah lost the ability to speak and suffered paralysis in the nerves of his face.
Abu Abdullah adds that the last news he received about his son was from the notorious Sednaya prison through one of those released. He conveyed a sign to his father that he is alive, and that was two years ago, in 2021, after more than six years of his arrest.
Until this day, neither Abu Abdullah nor any of Abdullah’s relatives or friends have been able to find a lead that could help them locate their son. All attempts always end with requests for very large sums of money just to find out where Abdullah is, without discussing anything about his release.
Abdullah has completed eight years of detention in Syrian government prisons, moving between its intelligence branches and ending up in Sednaya, where he was last seen. His family continues to suffer greatly due to his absence because of a charge that he has no relation to, neither directly nor indirectly. Hama Today newspaper extends its deepest condolences to the family of the detainee, Abdullah Diab, and calls through its current campaign on its platforms for his immediate release.
