'People had deep cuts, some had their eyes gouged out, their teeth broken': New book reveals the grotesque torture and murder meted out by Syrian dictator Assad – the man Russia's Putin is helping to keep in power 

• WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
• Military photographer 'Caesar' smuggled horrific torture photos from Syria 
• Photos described as 'clear evidence' of systematic torture during civil war
• In new book, Caesar speaks for the first time about his traumatising ordeal
• Syria's people have suffered regular barrel bomb strikes and rumoured chemical weapons attacks at the hands of their president
• Russia launched airstrikes in Syria this week in support of President Assad

By Peter Allen In Paris for MailOnline

Published: 09:48 EST, 2 October 2015 | Updated: 12:20 EST, 2 October 2015

A new book detailing the brutal torture and murder meted out by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad serves as a harrowing reminder of the true nature of the man Russia is now fighting for and wants the West to prop up.

A military photographer who secretly exposed the horror of President Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime with some 45,000 gruesome images of mutilated corpses has spoken for the first time about his ordeal.

Using the codename Caesar, a Syrian military photographer reveals how he risked being murdered himself to compile a terrifying cache of 45,000 gruesome images of mutilated corpses as evidence against Assad. His pictures, many of which are far too horrific to be printed here, have helped spark an international investigation into the Syrian dictator for crimes against humanity.

A military photographer, using the codename 'Caesar', smuggled some 45,000 images of systematic torture by government forces out of Syria between 2011 and mid-2013. The horrific images have helped spark an international investigation into the Syrian dictator for crimes against humanity

The traumatising images exposed the horror of President Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime, showing 'clear evidence' of systematic torture throughout the war-torn country's civil war

'I had never seen anything like it,' said Caesar, who still fears for his life. 'Before the uprising, the regime tortured prisoners to get information – now they were torturing to kill.'

Caesar's harrowing testament is contained in 'Operation Caesar', a new book by the French author Garance Le Caisne.

Referring to the corpses, Caesar told the author: 'I saw marks left by burning candles, and once the round mark of a stove – the sort you use to heat tea – that had burned someone's face and hair.

'Some people had deep cuts, some had their eyes gouged out, their teeth broken, you could see traces of lashes with those cables you use to start cars.'

Caesar was officially part of a team of forensic photographers working for Assad behind closed doors. But driven to act by the grotesque things he had witnessed, Caesar transferred the pictures of mutilated dead bodies from police computers on to USB sticks between 2011 and 2013.

These were smuggled abroad - often hidden in shoes and belts – through friends, and then posted on the Internet, where they are now available for all to see.

'We wanted to get these photos out so that the dead people's families would know that their loved ones had passed away,' said Caesar. 'People had to know what was going on in the prisons and detention centres. When Bashar al-Assad falls, you can be sure that the regime will want to destroy the evidence.'

As Russia launches airstrikes on Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad, the images remind the world that the leader is capable of atrocities that ISIS and other terror groups would be proud of

The tortured, starved and burned bodies in the photographs are the political opponents of Assad's regime. Many of them, who were among the regime's first victims, are only demonstrators who dared to stand up against the dictator. 

They have been put through hell - photographs that can't be published show evidence of lashings, burnings, extreme starvation, scalpings and castration. 

The regime, which dates back to the rule of Bashar’s father Hafez al-Assad, has been making its opponents ‘disappear’ for more than 40 years. 

But the number of those vanishing in the night has dramatically increased since the start of the Arab Spring in 2011.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights estimates that some 215,000 people have been detained since then – but it is unknown how many of these are still alive. 

While the barbarity of groups such as ISIS are regularly recorded in propaganda videos produced by the terrorists themselves, Assad is notorious for trying to keep his evil acts a secret.  

The dictator Assad (left) trained as an eye surgeon in London, and is married to the British-born Asma Al-Akhras, a former investment banker whose extended family remain in the English capital. Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) launched airstrikes in Syria this week, in support of President Assad

Volunteer search and rescue group Syria Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, in the aftermath of a Russian airstrike in Talbiseh, Syria

But Caesar's photos show that he, a sovereign ruler, had plumbed the same depths as the terror group.

The dictator trained as an eye surgeon in London, and is married to the British-born Asma Al-Akhras, a former investment banker whose extended family remain in the English capital.

The couple have three children, and continue to call for countries such as Britain to assist them in the war against ISIS, which is one of numerous forces fighting Assad within one of the most complex and destructive civil wars in recent history. 

Despite claims that he is fighting terrorism, Assad's oppressive 15 year rule over the country has in fact seen everything from barrel bombs to poison gas used to murder thousands of Syrian civilians, including women, children and pensioners.

Caesar was the first Syrian to supply conclusive insider evidence about the Syrian death machine.

The war alone has left more than 220,000 dead, while millions more have become refugees because of the non-stop bombing of cities, towns and villages.

Caesar was officially part of a team of forensic photographers working for Assad behind closed doors. But driven to act by the grotesque things he had witnessed, Caesar transferred the pictures of mutilated dead bodies from police computers on to USB sticks between 2011 and 2013. The images were put on display at the U.N. headquarters in New York (pictured)

The Syrian war alone has left more than 220,000 dead, while millions more have become refugees because of the non-stop bombing of cities, towns and villages 

Despite claims that he is fighting terrorism, Assad's oppressive 15 year rule over the country has in fact seen everything from barrel bombs to poison gas used to murder thousands of Syrian civilians, including women, children and pensioners 

As this played out, the torture of Assad's enemies that Caesar had exposed has continued unabated.

When Syria was at peace, Caesar worked as a crime scene photographer, capturing images of road traffic accident or house fire scenes involving military personal. 

Like the Nazi regime during the Third Reich, Assad's Syrian one is notoriously bureaucrat, making records of everything in minute details. 

As the war raged on, there were so many bodies to photograph that morgues overflowed, and the corpses were placed outside in the sweltering heat.

The bodies rotted, and became food for birds and insects. Despite this, the sights 'became part of daily life', said Caesar.  

Recalling his experiences further, Caesar said: 'Several times a week, I took the photos to Sami.

'When I was alone in the office, I'd copy them on to a USB stick that he had given me, always afraid that someone would come in and see me.

'When I left, I'd hide the stick in my heel or my belt. On my way home, I'd have to pass four or five army roadblocks. I was terrified. I didn't know what could happen to me. The soldiers might want to search me, even if I had my army ID.'

In one of the most harrowing extracts from the book, Caesar said he saw one of his own friends among the photographed victims: 'We photographed his body without knowing who he was.

A woman covers her mouth as she views shocking images smuggled out of Syria on display at the UN headquarters in New York. Caesar was the first Syrian to supply conclusive insider evidence about the Syrian death machine

'Only much later, as I was discreetly looking for information on behalf of his father, did I realise that his photo had passed through our hands and I hadn't recognised him. He had only spent two months in prison. And this was someone who I used to see almost every day.' 

Author Ms Le Caisne said: 'I had to find Caesar. The spectacular advances made by ISIS, and the growing number of terrorist attacks by its followers, were drowning out revelations about the Syrian regime's atrocities.'

She added: 'Caesar's pictures could put Damascus's abuses centre stage again. He had to be found…His testimony was essential if we were to understand the horror at the heart of the regime.'

Caesar was originally sheltered by a moderate Islamist group called the Syrian National Movement, and it allowed Ms Caisne to meet Sami, an engineer and Caesar's closest collaborator who had helped smuggle the USB keys.

Soon Ms Caisne was speaking to Caesar himself, recording 40 hours worth of interviews, and he is now a refugee hiding in an identified part of Europe.

Now, largely on the strength of the pictures, prosecutors in Paris have opened a preliminary inquiry into Assad's regime for alleged crimes against humanity.

It is supported by the French foreign ministry, which has handed over all of Caesar's deeply disturbing catalogue.

A YouTube video shows footage of what eyewitnesses and victims claim was a Sarin gas attack launched by government helicopters on the Syrian town of Saraqeb in May 2013

A victim of a suspected gas attack in the Ghouta region, on the outskirts of Damascus, shows tightly constricted pupils which is a symptom of Sarin gas poisoning, in August 2013

Foreign minister Laurent Fabius said: 'The French authorities received thousands of images from the Caesar files.

'Given the seriousness of the situation, I decided to forward these pictures to the French justice system, so that it can use them and decide what action to take, including any criminal proceedings.'

Mr Fabius added: 'Faced with these crimes that offend the human conscience, this bureaucracy of horror, faced with this denial of the values of humanity, it is our responsibility to act against the impunity of the killers'. 

The Directorate-General of the National Gendarmerie (DGGN), a military police force that answers to the Interior Ministry, is analysing the so-called Caesar Report.

It was commissioned to establish the credibility of the photos as evidence, and Mr Fabius said: 'The photographs from the Caesar report attest to the systematic cruelty of Bashar al-Assad's regime.'

Russia has used its UN Security Council veto to block any investigation of the Syrian government in the international criminal court, and its planes are now bombing Assad's enemies in Syria. 

The timing of the French prosecution is hugely significant, because Russia wants countries such as Britain to negotiate with Assad, saying he is needed as an ally to destroy ISIS.

Britain has softened its position on his war crimes by suggesting Assad could remain in a transitional government for six months.

But Ms Le Caisne said: 'The terrorists of Islamic State proclaim their atrocities on social networks, the Syrian state hides its misdeeds in the silence of its dungeons.'

Caesar believed that the Syrian security services felt 'indestructible', telling the author: 'They can't imagine that one day they will be called to account for their abuses. 

'They know that great powers support the regime. And they never thought that these photos would get out and be seen by the wider world.

'In fact, I wonder if the security service bosses aren't more stupid than we think. Busy repressing demonstrators, looting the population, killing, they've forgotten that their abuses were being documented.'  

Families walk among their shattered homes searching for survivors after a barrel bomb was dropped by government forces in the Al-Shaar neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria, on September 17

A Syrian man carries his two daughters as he walks across the rubble following a barrel bomb attack on the rebel-held neighbourhood of Al-Kalasa in Aleppo, Syria, on September 17

Caesar pointed to the chemical attack on Ghouta in August 2013, when Assad's forced killed 1,400 people using the nerve agent Sarin.

'Those responsible knew there would be evidence of what they had done – yet they still fired their rockets,' said Caesar.

Assad was first threatened by largely peaceful pro-democracy democracy campaigners during the Arab Spring of 2011, and his violent repression soon mushroomed into all out war.

When Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafez, was in charge of Syria in the late 1970s and early 1980s, more than 17,000 prisoners disappeared.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) estimates that more than 215,000 people have been imprisoned since the start of the current civil war.

In some 100,000 of these cases, relatives have absolutely no idea where these prisoners are.

In turn, Assad has always insisted that many of 45,000 photographs are fakes, and that Caesar's story was financed by the Gulf state of Qatar, which is committed to his overthrow.

Responding to news of 'Operation Caesar', Assad said: 'Who took the pictures? Who is he? Nobody knows. There is no verification of any of this evidence, so it's all allegations without evidence.'

When told that Caesar's photos had been in fact been verified by independent European investigators, Assad replied: 'Nothing is clear or proven. The pictures are not clear about which person they show. They're just pictures of a head, for example, with some skulls.' 

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