On April 26, Atef Najib, cousin of ousted President Bashar al-Assad, expressionless and dressed in a brown striped prison uniform, was brought into the iron cage for trial in the courtroom at the Palace of Justice, near al-Hamidiyah souk in central Damascus, reports Middle East Eye.
Najib, a former head of security, is accused of directing a violent crackdown on protesters during Syria’s 2011 uprising and faces charges of “crimes against the Syrian people”.
In March 2011, in the wake of the Arab Spring, teenagers wrote anti-regime slogans on a school wall in Deraa, including “Doctor, it’s your turn”, in reference to Assad, a trained ophthalmologist. Several children were detained and tortured in prison, triggering the first anti-government protests. At the time, Najib oversaw a broad campaign of repression and arrests there.
In the courtroom, a chant rang out: “The martyrs are the heroes. Atef, you are the dog.” A former head of political security in Deraa, Atef is among the first senior officials arrested on Syria’s coast in January 2025, just weeks after the collapse of the government. Since then, families have been waiting for this trial.
The trial comes as Syrian authorities are seeking to demonstrate that transitional justice is advancing.
Two days earlier, Amjad Youssef, the main suspect in 2013 Tadamon massacre, in which nearly 300 civilians were executed, was arrested. Yousef’s arrest was widely publicised in Syria.