Farid al-Madhhan: Syrian whistleblower 'Caesar' reveals himself in TV interview
The Syrian whistleblower known as Caesar, who documented countless cases of human rights abuses during the time of the Bashar al-Assad government, revealed himself as First Lieutenant Farid al-Madhhan in an interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday.
Madhhan, who originates from the southern city of Daraa, said he was the head of the Forensic Evidence Department of the Military Police in Damascus before fleeing his country with over 54,000 pictures of victims of torture, starvation, murder and other crimes in the Syrian government’s detention centres in 2024.
“The orders to photograph and document the crimes of Bashar al-Assad’s regime came from the highest levels of power to ensure that executions were carried out,” he said.
According to him, at the start of the anti-government protests in Syria in 2011, about 10 to 15 bodies would be brought into the security branches he worked in each day. By 2013, that number increased to 50 a day.
Most of these cases would have “cardiac arrest” as a listed cause for their death, which would later be known as a euphemism for death under torture.
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Explaining how he smuggled out the images, Madhhan said he used “hidden memory cards inside his clothing and loaves of bread to avoid detection”.
He told Al Jazeera that he used “an official military ID and a forged civilian ID to travel between his workplace in Damascus and his home in Al-Tall”.
“The smuggling operation took place almost daily for three years,” he added, explaining the precautions he had to take as he was often searched by both government and opposition forces at checkpoints.
‘Lift the Caesar sanctions’
The images Madhhan shared gained international notoriety and were used as crucial evidence of the abuses carried out in Syria under Assad’s rule.
Many of the images were displayed in the US Holocaust Museum and at the United Nations.
His evidence was then used by the US to implement the “Caesar Act”, named after his alias and signed by President Donald Trump in 2019.
When it came into force in June 2020, the legislation imposed heavy sanctions on the now-toppled Assad government.
Following the fall of Assad on 8 December 2024, Madhhan says sanctions must now be lifted in order to help the Syrian people rebuild.
“After the blessed Syrian revolution triumphed, and following the fall of the tyrant Assad regime, we call on the American government to lift the Caesar sanctions, because the reason for these sanctions is gone with the demise of the criminal Assad regime,” he said.
His call comes after several pleas from Syria’s new authorities for the lifting of international sanctions.
The US eased its sanctions with a six-month waiver on some humanitarian sectors, while the European Union’s foreign ministers recently agreed on a roadmap to ease their own sanctions.
'There are more than 16,000 criminals from the extinct Assad regime accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity'
- Farid al-Madhhan
In addition, Madhhan said he hope the new rulers in Damascus would open “national courts that will prosecute and hold perpetrators of war crimes accountable”.
“As the Syrian Network for Human Rights mentions, there are more than 16,000 criminals from the extinct Assad regime accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he said.
The fall of Assad, which ended his family’s five-decade rule, saw fighters open countless prisons, where thousands of political prisoners were held for years.
Mass graves have been identified where it is alleged that tens of thousands of Assad's victims were buried.
Calls for justice and accountability continue, as many Syrians pursue their search for their missing relatives.
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