A relative of fallen Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad has become the first official linked to the regime to go on trial.
Atef Najib, a cousin of the deposed leader, appeared emotionless as he was paraded in a cage wearing a striped prison uniform as he goes on trial accused of mass shootings and torturing children.
Assad, who fled to Moscow as Islamist-led forces closed in on the capital, and his brother Maher will be tried in absentia.
Najib, whose head is shaved, was seen perching on the corner of a wooden bench as hordes of people film and take pictures of him through the metal bars at the Central Palace of Justice, in Damascus.
He was a former brigadier-general and head of political security in the southern province of Daraa, where uprisings against the oppressive regime first erupted in 2011.
In February that year, he ordered the arrest of perpetrators who graffitied walls in the city of Daraa, calling for the end of the regime.
Police apprehended two teenage boys after they found their names scribbled next to offending graffiti, which was sprayed on a wall outside their school.
The teenagers were tortured and beaten while imprisoned, until the actual culprits, aged between 18 and 30, confessed.
The treatment of the school boys, under Najib’s command, catalysed further demonstrations, leading to police firing on protestors in March 18 and killing several people.
Atef Najib, wearing a striped prison uniform, sat seemingly emotionless on Sunday in a cage in a courtroom in Central Palace of Justice, in Syria’s capital, Damascus
The disgraced official, whose head is shaved and hands are handcuffed, perched on the corner of a wooden bench as hordes of people filmed and took pictures of him through the metal bars
Fallen dictator Bashar Al-Assad, who fled to Moscow as Islamist-led forces closed in on the capital, and his brother Maher will be tried in absentia
In April 2011, a separate teenage boy called Hamza al-Khateeb vanished after a protest. The body of the 13-year-old boy was returned to his parents heavily mutilated.
Najib was removed from his role by Assad, branded the ‘Butcher’ for killing his own people, after the atrocities. However, he was reinstated in the same role in the northwest Idlib province.
The crack down by security forces on peaceful pro-democracy protests sparked the civil war, which killed more than half a million people and displaced millions of others.
As the civil war progressed through its 13 years, Najib was increasingly sidelined by the regime.
He stayed in Damascus after Assad fled the country in December 2024, following the toppling of the government by rebels, and was arrested in January 2025.
The trial of Najib, 65, falls into a movement by Syria’s current authorities, under the new government of President al-Sharaa, to bring the Assad regime’s worst offenders to justice.
Assad was granted asylum by Vladimir Putin, after a lightning offensive led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in December brought a 13-year civil war to an end, as well as six decades of the Assad family’s autocratic rule.
Najib was a former brigadier-general and head of political security in the southern province of Daraa, where uprisings against the oppressive regime first erupted in 2011
Assad was granted asylum by Vladimir Putin Pictured: Assad met with Putin during a visit to Moscow in 2017, while he was president of Syria
Assad is wanted on charges of premeditated murder, torture and incitement to civil war.
Opening Najib’s trial, judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan said: ‘Today we begin the first trials of transitional justice in Syria.
‘This includes a defendant in custody, present in the dock, as well as defendants who have fled justice.’
A judicial source, who did not wish to be named, said the proceedings marked the beginning of preparations for the trials of Assad, his brother and other prominent figures like Najib.
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On Friday, Amjed Youssef, who is wanted for the mass killing of civilians in April 2013, was arrested after being found hiding in a village in the Hama province.
Footage emerged in 2022 showing Syrian soldiers guiding victims, who were blindfolded and bound, to a pit before shooting them. Youssef was filmed commanding the, what is now known as, Tadamon massacre.
Najib and his mother Fatima Makhlouf, the sister of Assad’s mother Anisa Makhlouf, rose to power purely because of Assad’s position.
The Makhlouf’s rapidly became Syria’s richest family, with a strong hold over its finances and the state news organisations.
The trial of Najib will continue 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.
Syria’s new authorities have repeatedly vowed to provide justice and accountability for Assad-era atrocities.
