ATROCITY

Syrian Rebel in Corpse Mutilating Video Speaks

Says gruesome images on the man's cellphone prompted him to act.

Speaking out for the first time since the gruesome video of him mutilating the corpse of a dead Syrian soldier surfaced online, Khalid al-Hamad defended his actions to TIME. The brutality he displayed in the 27-second clip—which included him "biting" into the man's lung—was prompted, he says, by images he found on the dead man's cell phone. "I found a clip of a woman and her two daughters fully naked and he was humiliating them, and sticking a stick here and there," al-Hamad said. The video, which stunned the Internet in April, was thoroughly reviewed in a report by Human Rights Watch on Monday. While difficult to watch, al-Hamad says it's just one violent scene of millions in war-torn Syria. “You are not seeing what we are seeing and you are not living what we are living," he said.