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    Syrian Filmmaker Speaks Out On Torture: 'I Was Holding This Pain For A Long Time'

    Oscar-nominated documentary maker Feras Fayyad delivered the first witness testimony in a crimes against humanity trial against a former Syrian government official in Germany.
    by Deborah Amos Jul 01, 2020 4 minutes
    Syrian Oscar-nominated filmmaker Feras Fayyad answers journalists' questions outside a courtroom during a break in a trial against two Syrian defendants accused of state-sponsored torture in Syria, on April 23, in Koblenz, Germany.

    It was a chilling description of torture in an infamous Syrian prison: "There were screams, they weren't normal," Syrian witness Feras Fayyad said in court. "I was very afraid."

    Fayyad, 35, an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, was the first witness to testify in a trial in Germany against a Syrian intelligence officer whom he alleges nearly killed him in a Damascus detention center in 2011.

    More than two dozen Syrian torture victims are expected to testify in the unprecedented trial that began in April, examining state-sponsored torture in President Bashar Assad's Syria.

    The former high-ranking Syrian official, 57-year-old Anwar Raslan, is charged with crimes against humanity for his role as interrogations chief in the

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