A Syrian man exposed photos of Assad’s prison abuse. We now know who he is.

In August 2013, a Syrian military photographer codenamed ‘Caesar’ covertly transported 53,275 photographs out of Syria, exposing the brutalities that went on behind bars at the Assad regime’s notorious and secret detention centres.

At least 11,000 of these photos depicted detainees’ dead bodies, bearing clear signs of torture and abuse.

The harrowing images later became the foundation for the US Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, signed into law in December 2019.

The identity of the man who took the photographs had remained hidden since the day he assumed the code name Caesar to avoid becoming a target for assassination or capture by the regime or its allies.

On December 12 – barely a few days after the fall of Bashar al Assad's dictatorial regime – Caesar's closest ally in the covert operation broke his silence and revealed his identity as the man who took the photographs from the military photographer and smuggled them out of Syria.

Sami, as he was once known, revealed his identity as Osama Othman, a civil engineer from rural Damascus who began working with Caesar in May 2011 after the Syrian uprising erupted.

Their collaboration was a daring endeavour: Caesar, stationed in regime-controlled areas, was tasked with photographing detainees who died in custody.

These photographs often documented the deaths of 70 people per day, many showing signs of gruesome torture.

Caesar smuggled these photographs on USB drives to Sami, who lived in opposition-controlled areas of Damascus.

Together, they worked to expose the systematic human rights abuses occurring within Assad’s prisons.

“Even my children didn’t know that their father is Sami,” he was quoted as saying in the interview, where he also recounted a moment when his son caught him looking at the pictures.

“‘Dad, why are those people sleeping without clothes on?,” he recalled his son asking. “He thought that they were asleep,” he added.

“The nature of the work and the nature of the file we brought out of Syria… made it necessary for me to conceal my identity,” he said when asked why he kept his real name hidden.

“Today, thank God, we are in a completely different situation. A new Syria. I wanted Syrians to know what happened.”

Sami’s revelation came on the same day a high-ranking former Syrian military official was charged with torture after being arrested on US soil in July. He oversaw Syria’s notorious Adra Prison from 2005 to 2008 under Assad, where thousands endured brutal torture.

Samir Ousman al-Sheikh has been described as “the highest-level Assad regime official arrested anywhere in the world,” by US authorities.

In 2014, after both men fled Syria, the photos were revealed to the world, igniting international outrage and calls for justice.

These images remain central to ongoing legal and advocacy efforts, serving as evidence of crimes against humanity perpetrated by Assad's security apparatus.

On December 12, Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), praised Sami’s bravery and reiterated the significance of the Caesar files in legal proceedings.

In an interview with Anadolu, he expressed the belief that Caesar himself would one day reveal his identity:

“At one point, Caesar will show his face to the world, and everyone will know this hero.”

Sami’s revelation marks a significant moment in Syria’s path toward accountability.

His story and the horrifying images he helped expose continue to serve as a powerful reminder of the atrocities committed in Syria since 2011 and the need to ensure that such crimes are never repeated.