On the evening of Thursday, February 6, many Syrians gathered in front of their TV screens, watching the Qatari channel Al-Jazeera, to discover the face and name of "Caesar." Eleven years ago, this defector from the Syrian military police risked his life to provide the first official evidence of torture on an industrial scale in the jails of President Bashar Al-Assad. The forensic photographer, widely celebrated as a hero, appeared in a gray suit with a graying beard.

"I am Chief Warrant Officer Farid Al-Madhan, head of the Forensic Evidence Office at the Damascus Military Police, known as 'Caesar,' son of free Syria, from Daraa, cradle of the Syrian revolution," he introduced himself. From the start of the Syrian uprising in March 2011 to his defection and flight in August 2013, Al-Madhan collected nearly 55,000 photographs depicting thousands of prisoners who died from bullets, torture, starvation or disease in Syrian intelligence detention centers, identified only by numbers, and bearing traces of torture and mutilation.

For over two years, he took part in this meticulous photographic census of a bureaucracy of barbarity, with the aim of collecting "as many photos as possible documenting and incriminating the Syrian regime's services for crimes against humanity." Assigned to the Tishreen University Hospital, then to a hangar at the Mazzeh Military Hospital converted into a morgue, in Damascus, "Caesar" was tasked with "photographing the bodies of the dead in detention, old men, women and children arrested at checkpoints in Damascus, or during demonstrations calling for freedom and dignity."

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