The fortress of Intzedin was built in 1872 by Reouf Pasha, on the same location where in 1646 the first Turks built a tower, chasing away the Venetians. It was the main defense construction of the port and was named "Intzedin" to honor the first born son of the Sultan Abdul Aziz Intzedin. In posterior years, the building was used as a prison for political prisoners, prisoners of the common criminal law and for prisoners who received the death penalty. In the period of Cretan Statehood (1903), the great politician Eleutherios Venizelos was imprisoned there for 15 days, who was prosecuted for objurgating Prince George. During the years of the dictatorship of Th. Pagkalos (1924), a large number of political prisoners were held in the prisons of Intzedin, while after the fall of the dictatorship in 1926, the former dictator Pagkalos was also imprisoned there for two years. During the German occupation and the first years of the civil war, the prisons were closed. However, towards the end of the civil war the prisons of Intzedin opened once again. In 1948, prisoners were transferred from the hell of the prisons of Yaros to the prisons of Intzedin, where many communist political prisoners were executed.  

Many people passed and suffered in the medieval, dark and hostile prison cells of Intzedin. The last role of the fortress, as a place of imprisonment of political prisoners whose only crime was to fight for their ideas and for democracy, became an inspiration for literary works and for the film industry. The movies "the Days of 36" and "the Stone Years" include references and shots from the fortress of "Intzedin".