Farid al-Madhhan, the Syrian army defector also known as 'Caesar ', has sparked debate with a new Facebook post criticising the appointment of figures linked with the regime of former dictator Bashar al-Assad to positions in the current government.
In the post published on Thursday, al-Madhhan said he felt "regret and sorrow over what is happening in our country", pointing to the reinstatement of individuals he described as "criminals and thugs of Bashar al-Assad's regime " to official positions.
Al-Madhhan said that the new Syrian authorities had given government positions to an engineer named Diab al-Hamad and a judge called Nizar Sadaqni, who he had said were engaged in casting doubt on the credibility of the Caesar photos under the Assad regime.
In 2013, Al-Madhhan, who had previously worked as a photographer for the Syrian military, defected from the Assad regime, smuggling over 45,000 photos showing the gruesome torture, starvation, and murder of political prisoners held by the regime.
He kept his identity secret and was known by the pseudonym "Ceasar", only revealing his true identity in 2025, shortly after the fall of the Assad regime.
The photographs shocked the world and provided justification for the US’s 2020 Caesar Act, which imposed stringent sanctions on the regime. They were also one of the main sources of information regarding hundreds of thousands of detainees held by the Assad regime, the fate of most of whom remains unknown.
In his post, Al-Madhhan included a photograph of a document purporting to show that Diab al-Hamad had taken part in a meeting with officials from the Assad regime’s notorious Air Force Intelligence and its foreign ministry in 2014, aimed at casting doubt on the Caesar photographs and their credibility. The New Arab cannot independently verify the content of the photo.
Al-Madhhan also said that a judge whom he only referred to as "Katrin" had been reinstated, accusing her of trying opposition figures on “terrorism” charges under the rule of the Assad regime.
He said that Assad regime figures were being rewarded "by promoting and returning them to their positions within state institutions at the expense of justice and the lives of the martyrs".
"These measures are dangerous and constitute a warning that does not bode well for our sons and daughters who sacrificed everything so that Syria might live today in freedom and dignity," Al-Madhhan added.
Al-Madhhan’s post comes amid ongoing debate about justice and accountability in Syria , with families of prisoners who were executed or forcibly disappeared in the Assad regime’s jails complaining that Syria’s new authorities have not done enough to uncover the fate of their loved ones or bring perpetrators to justice.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights has previously said that over 110,000 detainees forcibly disappeared by the Assad regime are most likely dead.