This episode takes you into Branch 251. Or Al Khatib Branch, as it is known among survivors.

Your hosts Karam and Fritz talked to them. Based on their accounts, this is how a detainee's journey looks like from arrest and arrival at the Branch, to the cells and interrogation rooms -- or better: torture chambers.

A word of warning: better not listen with kids or just before going to bed. This will likely be the most gruesome episode of the entire podcast. But it is reality. It is the 21st century. In Syria. It is Branch 251.

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You can follow us on Twitter @Fritz_Streiff and @KaramShoumali.

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Some additional sources on this episode and the trial here:

Bernard for The New York Times, 'Inside Syria’s Secret Torture Prisons: How Bashar al-Assad Crushed Dissent', 11 May 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/11/world/middleeast/syria-torture-prisons.html

Violations Documentation Centre, 'Report on Khateeb Branch- State Security, The Testimony of the Detainee Yaser Abd Al-Samad Hussen Karmi', August 2013: http://www.vdc-sy.info/index.php/en/reports/khatibbranch#.XrPe9xMzZE4

Will Christou and Walid Al Nofal, 'Torture and death: Life in al-Khateeb detention center', 29 April 2020, https://syriadirect.org/news/torture-and-death-life-in-al-khateeb-detention-center/#.XqmQsc2e9co.twitter

@ECCHR Berlin hearing summaries can be found here: https://ecchr.eu/en/case/trial-monitoring-first-trial-worldwide-on-torture-in-syria/…

Weekly monitoring reports by the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC): https://syriaaccountability.org/topic/trial-monitoring/updates/…

@MansourOmari survived the Syrian regime’s torture and is blogging for @AmnestyUK, Part 2 here: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/campaigns-blog/syrian-torture-trial-koblenz-germany-part-2

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