The Bahou al-Maliki Prison

This prison was in the Bahou al-Maliki building near the Shuhada Park and the Mosul Museum which overlooks the Tigris. The building was built in 1941 to host cultural and social events and festivals sponsored by the Nineveh Archaeology Department. After capturing Mosul in 2014, ISIS converted the building’s large hall into a group cell in which it detained judges and attorneys who had handled terrorism cases, some election candidates, and High Electoral Commission employees. People accused of sorcery and smuggling Yazidis to other Iraqi cities were also detained in this prison. According to former prisoners, the group cell was so overcrowded that prisoners had to coil up to sleep. Regarding torture, witnesses say that electric cables were applied to the bodies of detainees to administer electric shocks until they lost consciousness or died. Detainees were always blindfolded and handcuffed before being interrogated. One witness reports that executions were carried out both inside and outside the prison. He adds that a man accused of sorcery was beheaded in public in Bab al-Toub square in central Mosul. The main name associated with this prison is the prison judge Abu Hussein, also known as Qadi al-Dima (or the Blood Judge). He was imprisoned during the era of Saddam Hussein on the charge of murder but was released in 2002 by a general pardon. He was detained again by the American forces and spent a year in Camp Bucca before being released. After the expulsion of ISIS from Mosul in 2017, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) restored the destroyed building in collaboration with local organizations. The building has returned to host festivals, literary forums, and cultural events.