Syria opens first public trial of Assad-era officers

[ad_1] DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The primary public trial in Syria of officers linked to the rule of former President Bashar Assad opened Sunday in Damascus.

Atef Najib, a former Syrian military brigadier normal who was head of the Political Safety Department in southern Syria’s Daraa province underneath Assad and who can also be a cousin of the previous president, appeared within the courtroom to face prices associated to “crimes in opposition to the Syrian individuals,” state-run information company SANA reported.

Najib was in that place in 2011, when youngsters who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a faculty wall in Daraa had been arrested and tortured. The case grew to become a catalyst for mass protests in opposition to the repressive policies of Assad’s security forces.

The protests had been met by a brutal authorities crackdown and spiraled right into a 14-year civil warfare that ended with Assad’s ouster in December 2024 in a lightning insurgent offensive. Assad fled to Russia, whereas most members of his internal circle additionally escaped Syria.

Assad and his brother, Maher, former commander of the Syrian navy’s 4th Armored Division — which Syrian opposition activists have accused of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking, along with working its personal detention facilities — had been charged in absentia, together with quite a few different former high-ranking safety officers.

Najib was the one one of many defendants who was arrested and current in particular person in courtroom Sunday for a preparatory session within the trial, which can proceed subsequent month.

Crowds gathered exterior the courthouse to have fun. Baraa Abdulrahman, a spokesperson for the Syrian Ministry of Justice, stated the trial “is of nice significance for the independence of the judiciary, for transparency and accountability.”

One of many plaintiffs, Ramez Abu Nabbout, stated his brother, a father of three, was killed when safety forces opened hearth on protesters at Daraa’s Omari Mosque.

“He was a civilian and peaceable, however Atef Najib greeted peaceable (protesters) with gunfire,” he stated. “In fact we hope Atef Najib will likely be shortly convicted and can get essentially the most critical sentence, which is the demise penalty.”

The federal government of interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa has confronted criticism over delays in launching a promised transitional justice course of. Syria is struggling to heal following 14 years of civil warfare that left an estimated half 1,000,000 individuals useless, hundreds of thousands extra displaced, and the nation battered and divided.

Authorities now seem like transferring extra aggressively to prosecute officers linked to Assad.

Syrian authorities on Friday arrested Amjad Yousef, a former intelligence officer who appeared in a video leaked 4 years in the past that purportedly confirmed him and his comrades executing dozens of blindfolded and shackled prisoners within the Damascus suburb of Tadamon throughout the nation’s civil warfare.

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