Скачать или смотреть Exiled Syrian who brought proof of Assad's cruelty to light warns still much to do to find justice

(10 Nov 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

++UPDATES TO MAKE MINOR AMENDMENTS IN STORYLINE++

ASSOCIATED PRESS
France - 19 September 2025
1. Set up shot of exiled Syrian war crimes tracker Ussama Uthman, the founder of what came to be known as the Caesar Files
2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ussama Uthman, Caesar Files founder:
"This risk, I knew it might affect all members of my family, but the real value of what we were doing was much greater than my fear for my small or large family.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Damascus, Syria - 19 September 2025
3. Various of dozens of bodies pulled from a mass grave near Damascus

ASSOCIATED PRESS
France - 19 September 2025
4. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ussama Uthman, Caesar Files founder:
"This citizen has paid a heavy price, a heavy price, and deserves to reach a place where he feels that he lives in a homeland that respects his honor, his property, his life and his dignity. Therefore, we continue to document, and we also continue to monitor whatever violations we can, committed by any party, without any regard for any sectarian, religious or ethnic affiliation. Even a criminal who is arrested must have a fair trial."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Daraa, Syria - 16 March 2025
5. Various of families of missing Syrians gathering and vowing to keep searching for the truth

ASSOCIATED PRESS
France - 19 September 2025
6. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ussama Uthman, Caesar Files founder:
"There is no real will on the part of the interim authority in Syria to undertake a phase of genuine transitional justice based on accountability, reparations, compensation for damages, and guarantees of non-recurrence. From day one, they have been talking about restorative justice - justice that, as we say in Syria, is 'kissing moustaches' (superficial). How can you reconcile with the killer of your son?"
STORYLINE:
He waited for his brother-in-law to cross the front line smuggling documents stolen from the Syrian dictatorship’s archives.

Detection could mean dismemberment or death, but they were committed to exposing the industrial-scale violence used to keep President Bashar Assad in power.

Ussama Uthman, now 59, was building a vast record of the brutality — photographs that showed Assad’s government was engaging in systematic torture and extrajudicial killings.

Now, safely in exile in France and with Assad having fallen in a surprise rebel offensive last year, Uthman is sharing how he, his wife and her brother teamed up to smuggle evidence of the horrific crimes out from under Syria’s infamous surveillance apparatus as war tore the country apart.

The photos of broken bodies and torture sites — records were apparently kept to show orders were being followed — began appearing online in 2014.

They spurred U.S. sanctions, and are being used to prosecute suspected war crimes and help Syrians find out what happened to family members who disappeared.

“We have hundreds of thousands of mothers waiting for news of their loved ones,” said Uthman.

During a recent interview in northern France — The Associated Press agreed to withhold the exact location for security reasons — the only time Uthman's voice broke was when he recounted sending a woman photos of a brutalized body and asking if she recognized her son.

“I send her five snapshots of her son’s body, torn under Bashar Assad’s whips, and she rejoices. She says, ‘Thank God, I have confirmed that he is dead,’” he recalled.

“This sadness should have kept our flags at half-staff in Syria for years.”






He said he could access more.





































Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter:   / ap_archive  
Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​
Instagram:   / apnews  


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...