Syrian prisoners offered freedom if they fight for government on frontlines

Prisoners in Syria are reportedly being offered release in return for agreeing to fight on the frontlines in Deir Ezzor and Aleppo, local news sites report.

Negotiators were reportedly sent by the Syrian government to Adra Prison, on the northeastern outskirts of the capital Damascus, to encourage inmates to fight alongside pro-government forces in battles to gain ground in the divided eastern city of Deir Ezzor and in the flashpoint governorate of Aleppo. 

Sources inside the prison told local news site Syria Mubasher that a team of negotiators had entered the facility last week.

The negotiators informed all prisoners serving sentences of over five years, “for either criminal or political crimes,” that they would be released and have all charges dropped if they agreed to take up arms on the side of the government, Ali Baz, director of Syria Mubasher, told al-Araby al-Jadeed.

"A number of prisoners have registered their names, the majority of them people convicted of criminal offences and handed down long sentences," Baz said.

An apparent attempt to boost the number of soldiers fighting for the government last October saw Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi pledge to raise army salaries in an effort to staunch what he called "economic migration".

One of the biggest prisons in Syria before the war began, Adra was originally built to house 2,500 inmates, with separate wings for prisoners convicted of political, drugs and sexual offences. 

It also has a separate block to house female prisoners.

However, by late 2014 there were over 7,000 people being held in the prison, a government official said following a visit.

In December 2014, Ahmed al-Bakri, Syria’s attorney general, told pro-government newspaper al-Watan that prison laws were outdated and needed to be revised owing to conditions in the facility. 

But a man who was released in the same month told local news site Zaman al-Wasl that there were closer to 11,000 people in the prison, a large proportion of whom had never been charged.

Reports of attempts to conscript inmates at the notorious Adra Prison come a few days after security forces managed to wrest back control of Hama Prison, some 200 kilometres north, from detainees who staged a riot for the second time in less than a month.