Syria: First trial of Assad-era officials opens in Damascus

A Syrian court on Sunday held a preparatory session for a trial of several former officials in President Bashar Assad's deposed government, with only one of the defendants physically present in court. 

Assad's government was ousted, after more than a decade of civil war, in December 2024. He, his brother and other senior officials face trial for alleged crimes committed amid the fierce fighting.

"Today we begin the first trials of transitional justice in Syria," judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan said as he opened the session. "This includes a defendant in custody, present in the dock, as well as defendants who have fled justice." 

Who is facing trial, in court or in absentia? 

Bashar Assad, whose family ruled Syria for more than five decades, and his brother Maher fled Syria as the former government fell. Both are believed to be in Russia. 

One of their cousins, former security official Atef Najib, was in the dock in handcuffs and a striped prisoner's garb in Damascus on Sunday. 

Najib, who was arrested in January 2025, previously headed Syria's Political Security Branch in the southern province of Daraa, where Syria's 2011 uprising first erupted, soon escalating into a 14-year civil war.

He is accused of leading a campaign of repression and arrests in the region. Syria's SANA state news agency reported that he faced charges connected to "crimes against the Syrian people." 

Najib was not questioned by the judge in Sunday's brief session, which was dedicated to "preparatory administrative and legal procedures."

Another hearing has been scheduled for May 10. 

The AFP news agency cited an unnamed judicial source as saying that other officials to face in-person trials will include Wassim Assad, another relative of the president, former grand mufti Ahmed Badreddin Hassoun, as well as military and security officials arrested by the new authorities. 

Many members of Assad's inner circle are though to have escaped Syria. 

What else do we know about the prosecution process under the new government? 

Crowds gathered outside the courthouse to celebrate and jostled for entry to the building waving flags, with police on hand to keep order. 

The government of interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, himself a leader of an Islamist terror group that fought during the war, had faced criticism over delays in launching the promised transitional justice process against former regime officials. 

The country is stuggling to heal and to remain peaceful after 14 years of internal conflict that divided the country into multiple factions along multiple lines. It left an estimated half a million people dead, with millions more displaced. 

Assad and his brother Maher, the former commander of the Syrian military's 4th Armored Divison, were charged in absentia. Opposition activists accuse that military division of killings, torture, extortion, drug trafficking and running its own detention centers.

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Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko