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Syria’s interim judicial authorities have conducted the first-ever public hearing of several former senior officials from the deposed government of Bashar al-Assad.
The proceedings, held in the capital of Damascus, represent the first domestic attempt to hold the former government accountable for decades of alleged systemic repression, torture, and mass killings following the regime’s sudden collapse in late 2025.
During the first hearing on Sunday, only one defendant, Syria’s former security official Atif Najib, physically appeared for his trial. He was seen standing behind a reinforced cage in handcuffs, expressionless, after being paraded through the court wearing a striped prison uniform.
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He and other former officials face a litany of charges, including orchestrating mass shootings against peaceful protesters, overseeing notorious detention centres, and the specific torture of children during the early years of the Syrian civil war.
(Atef Najib, maternal cousin of Bashar al-Assad, a former Brigadier General in the Syrian army, is on trial in Damascus. Credit: X)
Assad and his brother Maher, the former commander of the Syrian military’s 4th Armoured Division, who fled Syria, will be tried in absentia.
The trial marks a pivotal moment for a nation transitioning from over 53 years of Assad family rule. While the former dictator, Bashar al-Assad, remains in exile, several of his high-ranking inner circle and family members appeared in the courtroom.
Today we begin the first trials of transitional justice in Syria, Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan declared, as he opened the first preparatory session. This includes a defendant in custody, present in the dock, as well as defendants who have fled justice.
(Former Syrian President Bashar al‑Assad and his brother Maher al‑Assad, commander of the Fourth Armoured Division, are being tried in absentia. Credit: X)
A New Chapter for the Syrian Justice System
The interim government of al-Sharaa, supported by various international legal consultants, has emphasised that the trials will adhere to international standards of due process. Unlike the closed-door military tribunals common under the previous al-Assad regime, the sessions are being held in a public forum with legal representation provided for the defendants.
However, the trial faces significant security challenges. The transitional authorities face the challenge of balancing the public’s demand for immediate justice with the need for a thorough, evidence-based legal process that can withstand international scrutiny.
Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and other advocacy groups have called this a “pivotal opportunity” to transition Syria toward individual rights and away from the cycle of state-sponsored brutality.
The fall of Assad
After half a century of heavy-handed rule and more than a decade of civil war, al-Assad’s regime collapsed after the opposition fighters launched an offensive against the pro-government forces. The trial of his officials is being viewed as a critical test for the establishment of the rule of law and the independence of the new Syrian judiciary.
The first skirmishes began on the frontline between the opposition-held Idlib and the neighbouring governorate of Aleppo. Several heavily armed factions, backed by neighbouring Turkiye and led by Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), formerly known as al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate, launched an 11-day Operation ‘Deterrence of Aggression’ to overthrow the Assad regime.
Led by the present-day Syria’s de facto leader, Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, formerly known by his nom de guerre, Mohammed al-Julani, several rebel groups took part in the operation, namely the Syrian National Army (SNA), a coalition of Turkiye-backed rebel factions, the National Front for Liberation (NFL), Ahrar al-Sham, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDA), the Southern Operations Room (SOR), among others.
While they couldn’t enter the Assad strongholds of Lattakia and Tartous, the rebel forces advanced into the cities of Homs and Hama, which were later dubbed as the “Capital of Syrian Revolution.
As Syria fell in December 2024, al-Assad and his high-profile ministers fled to Moscow as HTS forces closed in. Many officials sought refuge in the heartland of Assad’s Alawite minority provinces.
Syrian Prime Minister al-Jalali remained to keep things running. Najib, who, at the time, headed Syria’s political security branch in the southern province of Daraa, where Syria’s 2011 uprising first erupted, was arrested in January 2025.
Interim Syrian President Vows ‘Justice’
The 13-year civil war in Syria killed more than a million civilians and displaced millions of others, and tens of thousands of Syrians disappeared in the brutal prison systems. Najib has been accused of repression and arbitrary arrests of civilians who expressed dissent against the al-Assad regime.
Syria’s de facto President al-Sharaa vowed to deliver justice and hold accountable the officials who committed atrocities. In a post on X, Sunday, al-Sharaa said that justice would remain “a major goal that the state and its institutions strive to achieve.”
During Sunday’s hearing, the judge did not question Najib, but postponed the second hearing to May 10, saying Sunday’s session was “preparatory administrative and legal procedures.”
(US President Donald Trump meets Syrian interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in the White House. Credit: X)
The Path Ahead
While the current trial focuses on officials captured during the transition, the court also conducted the first procedural hearing in the trial of Bashar al-Assad in absentia.
International warrants remain active, and the proceedings in Damascus are expected to bolster global efforts to bring the former president to a formal international tribunal should he ever be apprehended.
As the court adjourned until the next session, the atmosphere outside the Damascus courthouse was described as one of cautious optimism. The legal fallout from the Assad era is expected to span years, involving thousands of victims and a complex web of financial and human rights crimes.
The sight of the regime’s inner circle facing a judge, for now, serves as a powerful signal that the era of absolute impunity in Syria has come to a definitive end.