Atef Najib, former head of the Political Security Branch in the Daraa area during Bashar Assad's rule, sits in the defendants' cage during a trial session at the Palace of Justice in Damascus, Syria, Sunday, April 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa said that justice would remain “one of the highest values for which our people triumphed” as the country opened its first public trial over crimes committed during the Assad era.
In a post on the U.S. social media company X’s platform, Sharaa said justice would remain “a major goal pursued by the state and its institutions to ensure fairness for victims, heal wounds, strengthen civil peace and coexistence, and reaffirm our commitment to pursuing those responsible for the suffering of our people.”
A Syrian court conducted the first hearing on April 26 in the trial of ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad and senior figures from his government, one of whom appeared in person.
Assad and his brother Maher have fled Syria and will be tried in absentia, but one of their relatives, former security official Atif Najib, was in the dock in handcuffs.
"Today we begin the first trials of transitional justice in Syria," judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan declared as he opened the session.
"This includes a defendant in custody, present in the dock, as well as defendants who have fled justice," he said.
Najib, who was arrested in January 2025 in the aftermath of the collapse of the Assad government, appeared in court in Damascus in a striped prison jersey.
He previously headed Syria's political security branch in the southern province of Daraa, where Syria's 2011 uprising first erupted.
He is accused of having led a broad campaign of repression and arrests there.
Syria's 13-year civil war killed more than half a million people and displaced millions of others. Tens of thousands of people disappeared, some into the country's brutal prison system.
Syria's new authorities have repeatedly vowed to provide justice and accountability for Assad-era atrocities, while activists and the international community have emphasised the importance of transitional justice in the war-ravaged country.
The judge did not question Najib during Sunday's session, which was dedicated to "preparatory administrative and legal procedures", and announced that a second hearing would be held on May 10.
The judicial source said in-person trials will include Wassim al-Assad, another relative of the ousted president, former grand mufti Ahmed Badreddin Hassoun, as well as military and security officials arrested by the new authorities in recent months.
Assad fled to Moscow with only a handful of confidants as Islamist-led forces closed in on Damascus in December 2024, abandoning senior officials and security officers, some of whom reportedly went abroad or took refuge in the coastal heartland of Assad's Alawite minority.
