Borzou Daragahi
speaker
114 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 11 Aug
Borzou Daragahi’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
The Claire Byrne Show · Bashar al Assad has been sentenced to death for war crimes · 11 Aug 2026
podcast
Well, there's not that much detail that has come out yet. This just broke. But yes, it appears that he was sentenced and after being tried in absentia for his crimes during the civil war that took place in Syria from 2011 until 2024. Also convicted was his little brother Maher and a cousin, Atif Najib,
Justice, this kind of post-conflict justice, is helpful when there's a process of reconciliation and a process of truth. And these truth commissions after long dictatorships and periods of trauma in a country are to be commended. And they've always served well. It's not great to sweep crimes under the rug.
On the other hand, it's someone who's not in the country anymore. And it does seem like the Syrian government right now under Ahmad al-Sharra has not really dealt with any kind of transitional justice. For example, crimes committed by the rebel groups have not been brought under any kind of scrutiny at all in the country. It's just focused on the regime. And I also think it's perhaps a little disturbing that he was sentenced to death. Why not life in prison? A death penalty in general.
It was a horrific war, and just to remind people, it started with a crackdown on kids, boys, school kids, aged 13 to 14, who were arrested for spray painting graffiti against the regime in the town of Daraa in the south. They were basically put into prison and tortured. They had their nails pulled out, these kids.
And the parents were told, forget about your kids, have new ones. And that's how the uprising started, because of the protests surrounding the arrests of these kids. And it just snowballed out of control. I want to mention that the militias from other countries that came in, essentially death squads,
going around killing people in sectarian violence. There was the bombings of cities. People will remember the barrel bombings, bombs being dropped from helicopters onto civilian apartment blocks, destroying entire sections of cities that were under rebel control. Just a horrific level of violence.
But it wasn't just the regime. The rebels also engaged in war crimes. ISIS took part in the conflict. The Kurdish militias were involved in war crimes. So it was an ugly matter all around. Of course, the most of the violence was by the regime.
Yeah, you're going to have this for some time now.
I think the Israelis realize they have a real pressure point with Lebanon and with the continued warfare there, and they're going to use that pressure point.
There are going to be other pressure points they're going to use to try to sabotage this deal.
They've basically announced that they're activating
their media strategy, their lobbying efforts in Washington, as well as this kind of kinetic warfare in southern Lebanon.
This particular sequence of events, there does appear to be a connection.
The pulling out does appear to be connected to what happened in Lebanon.
According to Al Mayadeen, that is the Hezbollah official news channel, they're citing their sources as saying, indeed, the Iranians told them that they are
at least delaying the beginning of these talks because of the fighting in southern Lebanon, the escalation of the warfare there.
Well, I think for all intents and purposes, the Strait has reopened based on ship tracking data.
But, you know, there's other issues to be resolved as well.
And the Iranians could close the Strait.
I don't see any evidence yet.
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