As many as 13,000 people were hanged in five years at a notorious Syrian government prison near Damascus, Amnesty International said Tuesday, accusing the regime of a "policy of extermination."

Titled "Human Slaughterhouse: Mass hanging and extermination at Saydnaya prison," Amnesty's damning report is based on interviews with 84 witnesses, including guards, detainees, and judges.

It found that at least once a week between 2011 and 2015, groups of up to 50 people were taken out of their prison cells for arbitrary trials, beaten, then hanged "in the middle of the night and in total secrecy."

"Throughout this process, they remain blindfolded. They do not know when or how they will die until the noose was placed around their necks," the rights group wrote.

Hidden, monstrous campaign

A twisted set of "special rules" governed the facility: detainees were not allowed to speak and must assume certain positions when guards enter their cells.



"Every day there would be two or three dead people in our wing... I remember the guard would ask how many we had. He would say, 'Room number one – how many? Room number two – how many?' and on and on," said Nader, a former detainee whose name has been changed.


After one fierce day of beating, Nader said, 13 people died in a single wing of the prison.

One former military officer said he could hear "gurgling" as people were hanged in an execution room below.


"If you put your ears on the floor, you could hear the sound of a kind of gurgling," said Hamid, who was arrested in 2011.


"We were sleeping on top of the sound of people choking to death. This was normal for me then," he told Amnesty.