Hamdan Alawi Abdullah

Hamdan Alawi Abdullah was arrested by ISIS in August 2014 in the Buhaira area of Bukamal. At the time he was a university student in his final year.

Hamdan recounts how he was arrested by Libyan members of ISIS along with a group of his relatives from the Shaitat clan. He spent a week in the Battar Battalion prison in the Hawi area.

Hamdan faced charges related to fighting alongside the Shaitat clan against ISIS, though he denied this. He attributes the accusations to ISIS’s hatred for the clan, as they were among the first to confront ISIS and to inflict losses on it.

Hamdan was transferred with the other prisoners to the Battar Battalion Prison. The Battar Battalion included Libyan and Moroccan fighters who spoke in a “strange” dialect. The interrogator, on the other hand, was apparently Syrian, as he spoke with a Syrian accent. According to Hamdan, about ninety percent of the prisoners were members of the Shaitat clan.

The witness states that the interrogation began from the first moments of his arrest and continued throughout the detention, accompanied by beatings and other forms of torture. He notes that the interrogators wanted to know which members of the Shaitat had participated in the fighting against ISIS.

ISIS members insisted on testing the detainees’ religious knowledge, prompting Hamdan to teach the prisoners the “principles of religion,” especially the younger ones, so that they would be able to answer the guards’ questions and would be spared punishment.

The witness speaks about the random torture, both physical and psychological,  to which the prisoners were subjected. He says that no one died under torture, but some prisoners were executed at a spot about a hundred meters from the prison.

Hamdan also talks about the labor they were forced to do; grazing livestock around the prison, carrying weapons and ammunition, and fetching water from nearby wells.

Despite being out in the open for long periods, Hamdan says he and his companions never thought about escaping because they knew their fate would be death, like many others whose bodies could be seen dumped on the roads and around the isolated prison area.

From inside the group cell where he was detained, the witness recalls the large number of detainees and the writings they left on the walls. He also speaks about the detention conditions, noting that water was available in the first few days, but then it was cut off, and the prisoners had to carry bathing water from nearby wells.

Prisoners were only allowed to enter the bathroom twice a day, according to Hamdan. He says that some suffered from diarrhea and vomiting, but didn’t receive the necessary medical care.

With regard to the food, Hamdan says it was scarce, consisting of dry bread or leftovers from the meals of ISIS members.

Hamdan says ISIS released him after confirming that he hadn’t participated in the fighting. On his way home, he saw bodies lying on the roads, which ISIS had burned by covering them with blazing car tires.

All of this left a severe psychological impact on Hamdan, who isolated himself at home for two months after his release. Afterwards he felt compelled to adhere to the codes of dress and behavior imposed by ISIS out of fear of being arrested again.