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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/syria-bodies/
Assad Is Emptying His Prisons of Political Prisoners through Mass Executions
(Washington Post) Louisa Loveluck and Zakaria Zakaria - As Syria's government consolidates control after years of civil war, President Assad's army is doubling down on executions of political prisoners. In interviews, more than two dozen Syrians recently released from the Sednaya military prison in Damascus described a government campaign to clear the decks of political detainees. They said prisoners are being transferred from jails across Syria to be executed in pre-dawn hangings in Sednaya's basement. Some of the former prisoners had themselves been sentenced to hang, escaping that fate only after relatives paid tens of thousands of dollars to secure their freedom. Satellite imagery of the Sednaya prison grounds taken in March shows an accumulation of dozens of dark objects that experts said were consistent with human bodies.