Majid Abu Draa: #CaesarPhotos Victim Profile

Majid Abu Draa: #CaesarPhotos Victim Profile
February 13, 2016
(incomplete)
updates 9-16-2018

Entry 45 on the SHRC list of the first 100 identified "Caesar" photo victims is Majid Abu Draa’(known as Abu Obaidah), from Rural Damascus - Dumar. Abu __ of course means father of __, and is often a fighter name or pseudonym, but can also appear in real family names - named Abu Draa, known as Abu Obaidah? Sure, this can happen. It could also be a clue this isn't his real name, but we don't need specific clues to wonder anyway.

The VDC lists as martyrs a total of 2 men of this name (as Abo Draa - أبو دراع ), both from the same area: Dummar, Damascus (Arabic: دمر  - here on Wikimapia). Both were, it says, killed under detention with torture and both with date of death unknown accurately. Majed was identified from the "Caesar" photos on March 9, 2015 (just before their public release?) and Alaa on March 20. Both entries include a photo. 

Alaa could be hard to match with a SAFMCD entry, with searchable red number cropped off and  forehead writing unclear ... 185? ... oh, lucky break ... 1852/215 is processed and matches. Folder date 3-2013 - not a death date but clue of unknown reliability. He was starved a bit and left mildly emaciated, and with damaged eyes. No obvious similarity to our main subject ... he's younger-seeming than Majed - could be a son, little brother, nephew, other or no relation.

Majed's entry has the photo inset at right, seen in the hospital instead of the garage morgue like Alaa. This seems to be the case mostly with the earliest victims in 2011 and 2012. He displays unusual redness with some yellow patches - possibly a clue, but one of few, to how he died.  No violence is evident above the shoulders.

 

What's most interesting is his SAFMCD match - there are two of them, in two different military intelligence branch folders, both using their stamped version of the same cropped photo at right.
* photo code 706348 "215 Raids Branch" branch victim# 1075, folder 1-7-2012. The (1) suggests this is photo 1 in a series of him. 

* 480324 "227 area branch (Damascus)" branch victim# 251, folder 3-7-2012, photo (3) (it's the same exact photo, but slightly more zoomed-in, and a different code # attached) 

So he's listed as killed by two distinct branches with two different numbers, but at the same basic time (folder dates may mean start of compiling, end of compiling, or other - and then photos from any time could be inserted if "Caesar" wanted it that way). The SAFMCD could address this by saying they inserted the wrong photo for one - after all, why would views 2 and 3 of the same man be exactly the same? But then why the consistent date? Was he swapped in for someone else in 3-7 folder? So that victim's photo is missing now?

 

Below is the full photo the above was cropped from, linked from a SNHR report. Supposed to show "tubes" attached to victims, this instead shows electrodes, likely to test his heart - to make sure the torture was as fatal as planned? He's also suffered a burned right hand, with cream applied, and bandages on three injuries or possibly surgery points, to the left side and each shoulder. Most likely, this man did register as alive when he first arrived at what seems to be Hospital 601. Notes on his side (unreadable?).

215-1075 In Context 

(for basics on the number system, different numbers, military intelligence branches, etc. see FC5 - trying to follow the following without that can be confusing - I'll try to summarize and bold the main points)

In the dispute above over which MI branch killed Majed, the above photo helps ... or not. The branch 215 number, 1075, seems to be the one they were staging at the time, written across the card (1075 looks like   ١٠٧٥) - they seem to have him holding the card himself, for an unusual and maybe disrespectful twist.

By this, he was arrested by the same branch as Alaa, but 800 people earlier, and killed nearly a year earlier.

But this is an unusual card - it's not blurred, for one thing. Then it has a single number 1075 with a line underneath, and under that no branch  number. 215 looks like "cIo" but instead we see a curve like maybe the letter  ب  (b sound - used as a suffix in later photos), or like the unseen next letter ث. used on the very last bodies in mid-2013. But enhanced, it looks more like the letter ن with "n" sound and no known meaning here. Or an unknown curve...

Back to 1075: Usually, a single number like that is a hospital/body/medical report number, not a branch victim #. A body # like that would put him ... not many examples, but earlier than these two if that's not a B
* hosp# 2102 (green ink)     215-311-1-11-2012 (3)    extremely starved, Zaman photo face match

* hosp# 2129 (per HRW report)  215-320-1-11-2012 (2)     Ayham Ghazzoul, died Nov. 9, 2012, dentist and human rights activist.
This would put him safely before the November 1 folder, at the slower body rate then, perhaps back around July.
        
And if that were a B (I don't think so), he'd be near 1127/b - 215-2119-4-6-2013.

This might be a seam of a sloppy effort to backdate a high victim number, forgetting he was already numbered in a different folder. In fact, put in sequence, he seems jammed into it. Below, a section of my partial assembly of screen grabs (in progress), gives a feel for the progression in this span.

He and a few others with close numbers (1071 1072 1074), set a trend of early hospital views dated 1 July like him. But these sit among 1,000 range victims dated December. We know group shots always show consecutive numbers, suggesting the number is just from order of death or discovery. But here two batches in the same range are shown as killed months apart, and intermixed. 

Suggested between "Caesar" and SAFMCD allegations, and this sequence is:
- these victims were arrested whenever in this order
- those few were killed in June or so
- the rest were held six more months before they were killed around December.

Does this apparent timeline glitch actually prove their explanation that this is an ID# based on arrest/arrival date? Usually that means they're being killed off in the same order they arrive after a uniform delay, but these would prove sometimes they were done out-of-order - just enough to barely prove "Caesar's" case?

No. Doesn't it make at least as much sense that these numbers are just made up? Note how even without a complete spread we can see at least 2 carefully-assigned victim numbers were repeated there - 1071 and 1072 were duplicated along the way ... and then 1123 as well, and more may emerge as this fills in. What are the odds they issued these 3 numbers twice, just to help those early hospital victims fit in with this little trick?

Considering the case above where we can see the number, the best explanation is this: those victims were inserted like Majid was - by re-branding the hospital # as a branch victim #. 

Reported at the Time?

Update, 2018: An Arabic search shows he is listed under detainees (contrary to old material below based on English search). The part after Abu is:

ذراع 

Which is translated Armah or Abarm, meaning "an arm" (?) but the sound is d-r-a-' - so Abu Draa is fine. This is him. But He's Mohammed Majid Abu Draa.

Mohammed Majed Abu Draa The regime forces arrested him from his place of knowledge in Mezze, Damascus. Detained 11-15-2012. Released 11-16-2012. Meaning killed? He was already dead by July, per the folder date anyway. Possibly a different guy.

http://www.vdc-sy.info/index.php/ar/details/detainees/35224

Mohammed Majed Abu Draa  (Abu Obeida) = the same guy. det. 2012-6-6 but "The date of arrest is not known. Where he was arrested by the regime forces from the hospital of Mowasat with five gunshot wounds." That's a lot to know without knowing when... was he then released? date of release: 00-00-0000. Seen dead before July 1, he has at least 3 patched spots, possible bullet holes (shoulder, shoulder, side). The hand abrasion could be caused by something else...

http://www.vdc-sy.info/index.php/ar/details/detainees/30170#.W55-5vZFzIV

A couple social media posts mention both arrests:

On Thursday 26/7/2012, Shabiha al-Assad is running over Mr. "Majid Abu Arm" a car belonging to the security forces and then targeted several shots

https://twitter.com/Syr_smf/status/230027659386695681

https://twitter.com/alhamehfree/status/230023954511835136

He was run over and shot five times before they could get him in jail?

2012-11-15 same account, says Al-Assad's forces arrested a young man "Mohammed Majed Abu ' Abarm" from his workplace in Mazzeh

https://twitter.com/alhamehfree/status/269143610908344320

2012-11-15

- The Assad forces today arrested the young man "Mohammed Majid Abu Armah" from his workplace in the area of Mazza (Facebook 11-15)

Note: it was November, 2012, when the "Caesar photos" began in earnest, with a very large folder of dead bodies collected that month, and from then on to August, 2013. Someone took out a copyright on the Caesar photos sometime in 2012, probably around October-November. This is also when they decide to mention Mr.Abu Draa's detention again, but putting it as a new event would suggest they didn't thin k dates would matter - they had the photo, could say he died in November. But in the end, he was put in July, not long after that first run-over and shooting arrest.

Old Check, Poss. Relations, poss. earlier arrest
Checking the VDC database for detainees for name Abu Draa = 2 or 3 reported, including neither of these. The translation doesn't work well here, so here's all the main info for 3 entries:
* Fadi Abo Draa: He was arrested by regime forces on a bridge (to?) Dummar 2012-9-18
* Khalid Munther Abu Draa: It is the third time that the arrests where the forces of order for his arrest from the first warm in front of the new railway
* Khaled Abu Draa: from rural Dummar, arrest downtown after severe beatings 2011-7-11

The two Khaleds will probably be the same, reflecting 2 of 3 arrests. The search for name in martyrs, linked above, includes neither of these guys. By VDC records, a total of 4 Abu Draa men from Dummar were arrested - two blamed on the government, not killed that anyone knows - and two others were locked away by someone, not mentioned in opposition sources, and then later appeared dead in the "Caesar" photos.

One source has Majed - or a man of his name - arrested and then released on Sunday, April 1, 2012 (in a discussion thread here) - "Released today for some of the detainees from Dummar (30 detainees), and some of these names," including "Majed Abu Draa (Abu Ahmad)" (not Abu Obaidah, but he could have 2 kids or 2 pseudonyms). They don't clarify who was releasing him from what kind of detention on what charges, and if they did it might have been untrue anyway.

Note how Khaled Abu Draa was arrested three times, and got 2 listings. Yet no such notice for Majid; the VDC does not list anyone of that name as arrested - not a first time to be released April 1, nor any second detention before July 1. But he wound up detained, allegedly by the same forces of order, and was somehow killed at least once by them. But that's alleged. And like so many others of these thousands of victims, this lack of early reporting suggests it was actually anti-government forces that were abducting (the bulk of) the "Caesar" photo victims. As we all know, these sources report regime crimes - true or not - and ignore rebel ones, or better yet ... blame them on the regime.