Two Turkish men were among those liberated from prisons once controlled by the Assad regime in Syria. Mehmet Ertürk and Engin Arslan returned to Türkiye to their families on Monday after the anti-regime forces freed people held in Damascus prisons.
Mehmet Ertürk, now 53, had been held in Adra prison in the Syrian capital for the past 21 years. Ertürk was arrested on charges of smuggling in 2003. Though he completed serving his sentence nine years ago, he was kept in prison. Ertürk told reporters that he was incarcerated because of false allegations by his “friends” of smuggling.
Ertürk reunited with his family in southeastern Türkiye’s Kilis after anti-regime forces took him to Jarablus in Syria’s north.
“I was tortured in prison. Almost everyone incarcerated there was subject to fatal torture. They once issued a pardon and released all foreigners, but Turks in the prison were not pardoned. I served my time, but they kept me there. They tortured and insulted me in prison,” he told Anadolu Agency (AA) in Kilis.
“I never thought I would be released. I thought I’d die in prison and will never see Türkiye again,” he said. Ertürk stated that anti-regime forces first released women and then broke the doors to their cells with hammers. “I first thought those people would kill us, but then they told us that we were free. Still, I thought that (the army’s) planes would bombard the prison. I saw a soldier, and he told me that Assad had fallen and we could leave. Outside, I saw people celebrating, firing into the air for celebration,” he said.
“My only wish while in prison was to be buried in Türkiye if I died there. I am happy that I’m back on Turkish soil,” he added.
Engin Arslan, who was captured by Assad regime forces as he was crossing the war-torn country to reach Gaza, was another Turkish national freed from a Damascus prison. His family hailed the news of his rescue 13 months after imprisonment. The young man’s father and a local official from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) escorted him to his hometown, Manisa, in western Türkiye after Arslan crossed into Türkiye from Syria on Monday.
