Syria has exchanged a vile dictator for an uncertain future

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. THERE WAS joy and horror and anguish all at once. Many of the detainees freed from Saidnaya, the most notorious prison in Syria, were husks: skeletal frames, vacant stares.

They staggered out of cells where dozens of people had been packed into reeking, pitch-black chambers. On the walls of one someone had scribbled in Arabic, “Take me, already." Some prisoners had been there for decades, long enough that they forgot their names and their families had declared them dead. From one cell in the women’s section emerged a young boy, a toddler who may have spent his whole life in jail.

Those who found their loved ones alive could not believe their fortune. Those who did not grew desperate. A rumour spread of even ghastlier horrors beneath Saidnaya: thousands of additional prisoners alive but trapped in underground cells hidden behind concealed doors.

It was a perverse sort of false hope. A group that represents Syrian detainees eventually issued a statement refuting the claim. The prison was empty, it said; there were no more hidden cells, no more survivors.

But even false rumours contain some truth. Bashar al-Assad, the longtime dictator, was brutal enough that Syrians found it plausible that he had built a dungeon beneath a dungeon. It was hard to imagine a depth to which he would not sink.

Syria is finally free of Mr Assad’s brutality. A rebel offensive that began in the north-west on November 27th progressed with lightning speed. By December 8th insurgents had reached Damascus, the capital, and Mr Assad had fled to Russia, ending his family’s 53-year rule.