Escape of ex-Intelligence Chief Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj from Mezzeh Prison - 1962

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Image Source: Knooz Syria News

The story made headlines in the Damascus daily al-Ayyam. Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj had been the feared director of intelligence during the years 1954-1958 and served as interior minister under President Gamal Abdul Nasser in 1958-1961. He was arrested when the Syrian-Egyptian Union was dissolved only to escape from jail in 1962 and flee to Egypt, where he remains until this day, offered asylum by the regimes of Nasser, Anwar Sadat, Husni Mubarak, and Mohammad Morsi. 

The newspaper headline has a statement from Army Chief-of-Staff Abdul Karim Zahr al-Din, praising unity of the army and calling all opponents "spies and bats of darkness."