The trials of prominent officials from the regime of ousted former Syrian president Bashar Al Assad will start on Sunday, the country's Justice Ministry has said.
Justice Minister Mazhar Al Wais said the first trials would involve officials implicated in offences in Deraa, where the 2011 uprising against Assad rule began. Several are accused of being behind the brutal crackdown that led to the country's devastating civil war.
Beginning the process with alleged crimes in the southern province “carries symbolic and national significance”, Mr Al Wais said, describing Deraa as the “cradle of the Syrian revolution and the starting point of events that reshaped the country”.
The trial of Atif Najib, who was arrested in January last year, will start proceedings. Mr Najib is the former head of political security in Deraa. A cousin of Mr Al Assad, he is also on a US Treasury sanctions list.
The Justice Minister said Damascus Criminal Court was ready “for the moment that victims have long waited for: the start of public trials”, calling them “part of the transitional justice process”.
Under the auspices of the current Syrian government, a number of notorious figures from the former regime have been arrested since a lightning rebel offensive put an end to Assad family rule in December 2024.
Syria's Interior Ministry on Friday announced the arrest of Amjad Yousef, a former member of military intelligence and the chief suspect in the 2013 Tadamon massacre, sparking celebrations in the streets of the south Damascus neighbourhood where 288 people were killed.
Tom Barrack, the US special envoy for Syria, welcomed the arrest in a post on X, calling it an important step towards accountability for atrocities committed during the long-running civil war. Syrian state media outlets have described Mr Yousef as “one of the most prominent direct perpetrators” of the massacre.
In June last year, Waseem Al Assad was arrested. The US Treasury imposed sanctions on him in 2023 for leading a paramilitary unit and being a “key figure” in a regional drug-trafficking network, it said.
With the former president and his inner circle having fled to Moscow more than a year ago, Syrian authorities have been under pressure to apprehend and put remaining operatives of the former regime on trial. Officials have also pledged to stamp out the cross-border drugs trade, particularly in the amphetamine Captagon, which helped finance the Assad regime.
However, revenge killings of mostly junior members and their associates have been rife, as well as random killings of Alawites, the minority sect whose members underpinned the former ruling system.
