Posters of ousted president Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez are torn down from the detention centre's upper-floor offices

This time he was there by choice. Mohammed Darwish was back in a jail that was run by Syria's feared intelligence services -- and Bashar al-Assad was no longer president.

Cell number nine reeks of putrefaction. It is an underground windowless room with blackened dripping walls where the 34-year-old journalist was held with around 100 others.