Syria's rebel leader vows to close notorious prisons and hunt down those who tortured detainees

"A place of absolute terror": ITV News' International Editor Emma Murphy reports from the Palestine prison in Damascus

The leader of the Syrian rebels has said they plan to close the notorious prisons run by President Bashar al-Assad's regime and warned that those involved in the torture of detainees will be hunted down.

"We ask countries to hand over those who fled so we can achieve justice," Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, said in a statement on Thursday, according to Syrian state TV's Telegram channel.

The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leaders comments come as thousands of prisoners were freed from the country's harsh prisons after the regime was overthrown by rebels on Sunday.

Syria's prisons are infamous for systematic torture, disease and starvation, as claimed by human rights groups, whistleblowers, and former detainees.

ITV News' International Editor Emma Murphy went to the Palestine prison in Damascus, which held thousands of prisoners in dire conditions.

Murphy described the prison as a place of "absolute terror" for those picked up by the Assad regime, as "so many people who came in here, were never seen again."

Prisoners were packed into tiny cells, with just blankets on the floor for beds. The only daylight the prisoners would have seen for year on end was in a tiny courtyard.

In one of the solitary confinement cells, which was so small "you can barely spread your arms", there was just a blanket for a bed, small plastic pots for a toilet and a couple of potatoes in a tray for food.

"I was struck by this on the wall, 'time passes', well it must have passed incredibly slowly here", she said.

Further down the corridor is what was referred to as the "big cells".

These cells would have been home to more than one hundred people who were held in this prison for years.

"You can see where the blankets are on the floor how tightly packed people must have been.

"On the wall there is the flag and also I can see, in the top corner, a camera where people could have been monitored.

"What happened in this prison will be subject to a major investigation into what atrocities were committed here, why people were detained in these conditions, and were never ever seen again."

While searching in a prison for missing American journalist Austin Tice, who has been held captive in Syria since 2012, ITV News' US partner CNN captured the moment a prisoner was freed.

The reporter was in one of the secret prisons in the Assad regime's airforce intelligence headquarters, separate from the one ITV News visited.

CNN reported that this branch was tasked with surveillance arrests and the killing of regime critics.

In one of the prison cells that was still locked, they found a prisoner under a blanket.

The man told CNN this was the third prison he was brought to and was held in the windowless cell for three months.

"For three months, I didn’t know anything about my family, I didn’t hear anything about my children," he told CNN.

"My God, the light," he said, "oh God there is light. My God there is light."

On Sunday, Syria's rebels toppled President Assad's regime, ending his family's 50-year iron rule.

Mohammed al-Bashir has been named as the country's new interim prime minister, state media reported. Al-Bashir is set to stay in the position until March 1.

The Biden administration said it would recognise and support a new Syrian government that renounces terrorism, destroys chemical weapons, and protects the rights of women and minorities, but did not specify which groups it would work with.

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