Syrian prison a breeding ground for extremists

A Syrian preacher and former legislator describes the conditions inside the country's feared Saidnaya prison, where extremists were radicalised in the years before the current uprising against Bashar Al Assad.

A fighter from the Al Qaeda-linked Syrian rebel group Jabhat Al Nusra is seen through a smashed bus window during a fight with forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad at the front line in Aleppo on December 24, 2012. Ahmed Jadallah/ReutersShow less

Saidnaya prison was a breeding ground for extremism, according to a Syrian preacher and former MP who worked with prisoners there from 2008 to 2009.
Dr Mohammed Habash, who visited the Saidnaya regularly as part of a regime-backed programme to rehabilitate militants and reintegrate them into society, said he saw a growing radicalisation among the prisoners that posed a serious national security threat.
Among the political prisoners packed into the notorious facility north of Damascus were Islamist militants with links to Al Qaeda who had been arrested on their return from fighting American troops in Iraq.
The mingling of veteran militants with other inmates, and humiliating conditions that eventually led to a violent rebellion, made the prison a breeding ground for extremism, Dr Habash said.
A number of more moderate prisoners were radicalised in part because they were tortured in detention, he said.
Saidnaya had 1,200 prisoners in total but Dr Habash said he could not tell how many were Islamist militants "because no one was allowed to grow a beard".
The programme allowed Dr Habash, who holds a doctorate in Sharia studies and who preached at Al Zahraa mosque in Damascus before joining parliament in 2004, to interact with 100 prisoners at a time twice a week. He would encourage them to speak freely and discuss their radical views.
He recalled a short encounter with Zahran Aloush, now one of the most prominent rebel commanders in Syria, who was among the prisoners freed by the regime after the start of the 2011 uprising.
"Zahran was the only one who stood up and spoke candidly about his views in front of other inmates and the prison warden," Dr Habash said. "He said I could argue with you, but not while we are in prison. In a free forum, I could debate with you."
Dr Habash, who now lives in the UAE, blamed the regime for turning Salafis into enemies of Mr Al Assad.
If it were not for the regime's policies, they could have been controlled. Instead they were rejected by society and isolated, he said.
After several months of preaching in the prison, some of the inmates recanted their radical views and Dr Habash provided the authorities with a list of those he thought were safe to be released.
But the warden, Col Ali Khair Baik, "insisted they were all liars".
Dr Habash's lectures ended abruptly in 2009 after a prison rebellion.
At the beginning of the programme, Dr Habash said, he believed that the regime had allowed the lectures because it aimed to release some of the prisoners. But in the end, "I was not able to release a single one".
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