Khalil Ahmad al-Nasser

Khalil Ahmad al-Nasser is a resident of the Rumaila neighborhood of Raqqa. He was working in sanitation when ISIS seized control of the city.

Khalil narrates how, one day in August 2015, at around six o’clock in the morning, ISIS raided his house, arresting him, his two brothers, and his cousin. Having been handcuffed and blindfolded, then shoved, kicked, and smacked with the end of a rifle, they were escorted to the Stadium Prison. He only learned that the charge brought against him was “collaboration with the Global Coalition” after three months of imprisonment.

In the safety deposit room, he explains how they handed over their belongings, swapped their clothes for a prison uniform that ISIS provided, and waited in the corridor to be interrogated.

In the corridor, he recalls how he and four other prisoners stood on their feet for three whole days. They were not allowed to sit down except when they were eating or using the bathroom. They were dragged to the nearby investigation room and back to the corridor, where the beating continued. The beating was carried out with a green hose, known to the prisoners as “Lakhdar Brahimi,” and with tasers. They received extra torture whenever they pleaded with the ISIS guards to sit down as their feet could not bear it anymore.

In the investigation room, he explains how it seemed to him that interrogators were keen to gain a specific confession from him. Responding to their questions, he insisted that he knew neither what his charge was, nor what confession they wanted, and his denial provoked them to continue beating, flogging, and shocking him with the taser.

The witness moves into the solitary cell, where he spent three and a half months alongside two other inmates. He points to his name and a tally of the days he spent in the cell that he carved into the wall – a practice carried out by most prisoners. He also points to squares carved on the wall. These were part of a game prisoners played to entertain themselves.

Khalil enters the torture room. He points to the ring from which he was suspended upside down for seven days. He explains how jailers would hit prisoners with the end of rifles or flog them before pouring cold water on them. Answering a question about torture devices in the room, Khalil starts listing water hoses, sticks, chains, and pliers used to pull out the prisoners’ nails.

The most distressing scene is in the execution chamber, where Khalil narrates how ISIS jailers brought him here, removed his blindfold, and forced him to watch the decapitation of four prisoners. It was as if they were telling him he would be next. He recalls the agony of hearing the final pleas from the prisoners. For him, this was the cruelest torture he ever endured.

In front of the cramped solitary cell, Khalil tells us how the prisoners used to sleep and how they used to talk in whispers only. They were unable to communicate with inmates in neighboring cells and Khalil even refrained from talking to his brother when he heard his voice, for fear of being flogged.

Regarding food, Khalil mentions that they were provided with three meals a day. As for health care, he confirmed there was a doctor in one of the rooms, receiving patients and prescribing medicine. He suffered mostly from severe headaches due to the bad ventilation and the foul smells from the toilet inside their cell. 

Finally, Khalil narrates how he was released four and a half months later, along with his younger brother and cousin. They returned home on foot at night. According to some witnesses, his uncle and his older brother were beheaded.

In front of the main prison gate, Khalil says that a lot has now changed about the building, from the paint work to the cleanliness. The greatest change, however, is that “ISIS and all the wrongdoings it carried out have been removed.”