TRANSCRIPT
Adel Al Deeb's daughter Hanna still remembers the day, when she was 15 years old, that her father was taken from their home.
“He was sitting next to me, feeding me because I don't eat. He said "I'm coming back. Finish your food. I'll be back for you.”
Mr Al Deeb had been forging a new life in Melbourne.
But family tragedy forced him to return to Lebanon, which was entering the throes of a 15-year civil war.
Tragedy would again strike, when he was abducted by Syrian forces.
His sister, Jamal Al Deeb, takes up the story.
“They took him around 7 o'clock at night. Then around 9.30, 10pm his son went to my parents house and told them, oh my dad.. someone took him and we don't know where he is.”
Hanna says they've never got over it.
“Every minute, he's in my head. We're thinking about him.”
Mr Al Deeb's family says he came to Australia in 1973.
Documents provided to SBS show he acquired Australian citizenship in 1977, the same year he had to return to his village in Lebanon.
His family says he was abducted in December 1984, aged 36; he would now be 76 years old.
The worst fear his relatives have - is that he's being held in the notorious Sadnaya prison in Damascus.
It's been described by Amnesty International as a 'human slaughterhouse'.
Since the fall of the Assad regime, former prisoners have been streaming out, including one Lebanese man held for nearly 40 years, taken during his country's civil war.
But Jamal says there's been no news about Adel Al Deeb.
“I said to myself, if I can go I will go with a microphone and yell 'where is my brother. adel, adel, adel, we wanna call him. That's why we need people to help him.”
She believes her brother is still alive, having received a letter signed by him in April.
She says the family have now sought help from the Australian government.
“We want them to go and look for him. Because he is an Australian citizen. All his kids are here. We wanna find him.... because he's still there. 100% he's still there. he's still alive.”
SBS has approached the Department of Foreign Affairs for comment but no response has been received as yet.
