Just a warning, this episode includes descriptions of violence and torture and may not be suitable for all listeners.

In early February, Louisa Lovelock was waiting in the chilly basement of a cafe in Beirut, Lebanon.

She was there to meet a man she wanted to interview.

But when he arrived, he was not what she was expecting.

I had some idea of what had happened to him.

And it was a real shock to see him for the first time.

Louisa was reporting on Syria for the Washington Post

and was about to start down a path that would end with her revealing a litany of horrors

that were taking place in a Syrian hospital facility.

This is the story of how she did it.

I'm Maeve McLenigan and this is the Tip-Off, the podcast where we take you behind the scenes of some of the UK's best investigative journalism.

Peaceful protesters were attacked and killed. The bloodshed had begun.

Humiliation, then execution. That's the fate the enemies of Islamic State know they face if they're defeated or captured.

Air attacks by regime forces resumed and specifically targeted the last remaining hospitals in Aleppo.

The news coming out of Syria has been unrelentingly horrifying for the past six years.

Barely a week goes by without the documenting of another atrocity.

But beyond the bombs and gas attacks,

journalists have been working to piece together the evidence

of something more calculated and systematic going on.

Sometimes in facilities you wouldn't expect.

Prisoners have been tortured in their beds. They've had lifesaving medical treatment

withheld. And when they finally died, they have been sort of sent for mass burial.

...