Arabic → English transcript

My husband went inside, into the massacre inside.

Ah, so it was Amjad Yusuf who had prepared it, he was the first one at the pit.

Everyone knows that my brother died in the same pit. He used to bring innocent

people and fire

bullets at them and throw them into the hole.

We used to see the criminals in front of our eyes and we did not dare say anything.

I have three cousins with their wives and their children. What was their guilt?

How many orphans cried for their fathers? So then why the burning?

It is as if I can see the victims,

dripping one after another into the pit, and they said, “ O Lord,

take our right for us. God is greatest!” God is greatest!

The Syrian people woke up to good news that warmed

their hearts. O mother of the martyr, how lucky you are,

I wish my mother were in your place. O mother of the martyr,

how lucky you are, I wish my mother were in your place.

Everyone is congratulating me, saying thank God they caught Amjad Yusuf.

For the sake of these people who died innocent.

It is such a great joy, glory be to God.

My tears are on my cheeks from joy.

We are happy from the bottom of our hearts.

It is the best day after the liberation.

Now we can offer condolences for our martyrs.

Today’s news is that

they caught Amjad Yusuf.

Come on, come

on, come on.

God is greatest! God is greatest!

Come on, come on.

The beginning…

I would like to congratulate the Syrian people on the arrest of the criminal

Amjad Al- Youssef,

the primary suspect in the Tadamon massacre case, which claimed dozens of victims.

And I would like to congratulate

in particular our people in the Tadamon neighborhood on the arrest of this

dangerous criminal.

On Friday morning, or at dawn on Friday,

the operation had been planned several days in advance, we prepared the

aerial survey with special arrangements for the arrest itself,

and there were several security cordons to carry out the operation properly,

so that we would not encounter any problem during the mission. Praise be to God,

the operation went smoothly, we entered his house and he was in his bedroom,

and he was not able to resist the forces executing on the ground.

After that, he was taken

to the competent authorities to begin investigations into the crimes he was accused

of in the Tadamon

neighborhood

and elsewhere. I am Amjad Youssef, a warrant officer.

I used to work in the Intelligence Directorate in the Region Branch, Branch 227.

I joined the military service in 2004,

for an intensive one- year course. I graduated in 2005, 2006— sorry,

2006— as a… Sergeant, then first sergeant.

And I finished the rank of first sergeant until I was promoted to the

rank of warrant officer,

and then my service record ended while I was at the rank of warrant officer.

The video that spread on social media, the one in which

Amjad Youssef appears, that is me.

And the one where it showed that before, at the beginning of the crisis,

roughly at the beginning of the revolution,

what happened is that I and Najib with me, this is Najib Al- Halabi,

he was with the National Defense,

and one of their members was a cameraman, I do not remember

what the cameraman’s name was. We had brought before, roughly around forty people,

supposedly all of them at that time were terrorists or financiers,

financially supporting terrorism. As for the soldiers,

there was no one there except me. We drove them to the pit that had been dug,

dug by a backhoe, and I opened fire on— just as

you saw in the video clip— sometimes I would wait for him to go down into the hole,

sometimes I would shoot him before he went down into the hole.

Sometimes I would hand it to Najib so he would be the one to shoot,

until we finished them off. And after we finished the shooting,

we had put We put tires on the ground beneath them, then we put tires

on top of them, and we light the fire on top of them, so that it gets to the

point that no smell comes out in the area. We lit a fire on top of them

and we filled in the pit. He filled it in, I mean, after a day, after two days,

I just did not care anymore. Of your own decision? I by my own decision, without…

I do not have a military rank that gave me

an order, or an officer, or a general.

If I had one, I would tell you the opposite,

I would take responsibility for myself.

By God, I did not choose the victims, it was not my choice,

it was not that a number of forty people was agreed on, it just happened that way,

that is how the circumstances came together and that number came about,

that is what it means. We did not choose them.

I would go out with him to get so- and- so, for example,

someone about whom there was information,

or someone came and wrote a report about him, or information

arrived about him that he had been with the gunmen in some area and then,

for example, he left and was hiding. So- and- so had been supporting the gunmen

with supplies or anything, that is how the information used to come,

and based on that we would go out and

bring them in.

Hopefully every criminal whose hand is stained with blood,

they will be caught, God willing.

We We are doing our work for the state, thank God I have not forgotten.

We have our eyes on it. Under God's watch.

By God, the truth came out today.

May God grant you victory and protect you. God willing, dear Lord.

Dear Lord, may it also be Bashar al- Assad's turn.

We at the Ministry of Interior pledge to the Syrian people that we will continue

to pursue transitional justice until the arrest of the last criminal who

shed the blood of the Syrian people and had a black hand in the

great Syrian revolution.

We also thank the men of the Internal Security Forces in the Ministry of

Interior for carrying

out the mission correctly and bringing Amjad Youssef into the grip of justice.

Oh mother of the martyr, lucky you,

I wish my mother were in your place. Oh mother of the martyr,

lucky you, I wish my mother were in your place. Martyr after martyr, blows against

the criminals. Congratulations, martyr, may you

enjoy paradise.