Muhammad Abd Saleh Hasan al-Hamdani

Muhammad Abd Saleh Hasan al-Hamdani is married and has two daughters. He worked odd jobs during the period of ISIS rule. This included selling cigarettes, which was strictly forbidden by ISIS.

 

In a long interview, he mentions being arrested several times in Iraq and Syria during ISIS control without giving details about the various arrests. However, he indicates that some were related to selling cigarettes and others were related to trying to smuggle people into Syria. Most of the interview focuses on the 85 days he spent in the Midan Prison.

 

In 2016, ISIS members caught Muhammad with 132 cigarette packets. However, he managed to escape, and disappeared for around two months. Eventually, he was arrested by an ISIS patrol in the Shaarin neighborhood. He was detained for a few hours at a local mosque and then transferred to a Hisba office in the Najjarin area. After that, he was moved to the Tayaran Prison where he was detained for a short time before it was bombed. Finally, he was transferred to the Midan Prison.

 

During his detention, Muhammad was interrogated and appeared before an ISIS judge. He says he was tortured several times. He was flogged and beaten while tied to the ‘Hantourah’ (a torture tool that resembles a bed). He adds that ISIS members escalated his torture after a prisoner tipped them off that he had not provided correct information about his cigarette business.

 

He then talks about the punishment he received. After confessing everything, he was sentenced to a public crucifixion. He was taken to a public square in Mosul where he was crucified for three hours a day for three days in a row.

 

His detention lasted a long time, and eventually his treatment by the jailers improved. He was even appointed to the role of prisoner functionary, which meant he supervised other prisoners. He stresses that this responsibility put him in a tricky spot. But he was lenient when searching new prisoners and turned a blind eye to the smuggling of a few cigarettes or drugs into the prison. He admits that he and other other prisoners often smoked in the prison’s toilets. He also describes how addicts suffered from withdrawal after losing access to drugs.

 

Standing in the room that used to be the prison’s kitchen, he explains that he learned how the food was prepared and distributed as ISIS jailers initially gave him the task of delivering meals to prisoners. In the earlier part of his detention, prisoners were served rice with broth at noon and potato or lentil soup in the evening. In the later days, as the battles intensified and caused disruption, Muhammad and another prisoner were tasked with preparing the meals for the prisoners. They were given access to the kitchen in the basement to prepare them. The meals were rationed to include pasta and boiled potatoes only. 

 

Turning to a horrific incident he witnessed in prison, Muhammad narrates how ISIS jailers beat a prisoner to death with sticks just for being a relative of someone who had shot an ISIS member outside of the prison.

 

It is noteworthy that Muhammad paints a different picture of ISIS members during their last days in Old Mosul. He describes a state of anxiety and fear as the battles raged on and attacks against the organization intensified. He says that the jailers became afraid of entering the prison cells. When it was necessary to do so, they ordered everyone to stand by the wall and only allowed one prisoner to approach them. 

 

He explains that the disruption gave him a chance to escape with two other prisoners through the roof. After careful planning, they were able to break the lock of the roof door using a tool that Muhammad had secretly taken from the kitchen. With electricity cut from the surveillance cameras on that day, they seized their chance and broke the lock. Later in the night, they sneaked up the stairs of the roof. Muhammad and another prisoner were able to escape successfully. However, the third prisoner, who was diabetic, fell and broke his back, and was consequently recaptured. 

 

After his escape, Muhammad moved between a number of houses that belonged to trusted friends, and stayed away from his own neighborhood for months. He comments that during the period of ISIS control he spent more time in prison than in his own home.