Equal before the law? Transitional justice in Syria
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What is the background of Atef Najib’s trial and why is it significant?
The Economist. Oh Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. I'm Jason Polmer. Today on the show, the next in our America at two fifty series and a curious whiskey making boom in China. Oh.
But first
I'll put Najib within Najib. Oh well if we done. Are you Banma Briefone? This is my soulpark.
Now
how there?
How there? In a Damascus courtroom, an old man stands in a cage. He has a pained expression on his face. He's wearing a black and white prison uniform.
Gareth Brown is a Middle East correspondent for The Economist.
Artif Najib is on trial for murder, torture, and orchestrating massacres.
Fifteen years ago, this man was the security chief of Deta,
American
a city in southern Syria.
When the parents of children arrested in protests in 2011 came to Mr. Najeeb, who was head of security in the city at the time, to beg for mercy. He told them to forget about their sons, to go home, and to make new ones. That brutal period in Deborah. morphed into nearly fourteen years of nationwide repression, bloodshed and war.
Спасибо за них, а собол адаптир на багаль.
But on May tenth, the Syrian courts finally began to catch up with the criminals who ran Bashar al-Assad's regime. Artif Najib is the first man to take the stand.
What's the
And so before we speak about this specific case, what does the justice system in Syria after the revolution now look like?
Well I think is a judicial system in transition like the rest of the country. And essentially there are two tracks. Last year, President Ahmed Shahra announced this Transitional Justice Commission, which is a special body which was going to look at the idea of transitional justice, look at lessons from other conflicts, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, places like that. And try to develop a system, perhaps a special court for the Syrian context. So this was one track, and it was very much a more ideological international human rights law led process. However, the trials that have begun in the last few weeks are actually happening as a result of movements by the Syrian Ministry of Justice.
How does Syria’s post‑war judicial system handle transitional justice?
And they're fundamentally based on the legal system that all already existed in Syria prior to Assad's falling. Syria had fifty years of rule by Bashar al Assad and before that his father Harviz al-Assad. And really that has left the country with a judicial system that is not very well equipped to deal with these sorts of crimes. There is no crimes against humanity or war crimes on the Syrian statute book. Legislation around things like command responsibility and indirect responsibility for crimes is also quite weak. So they are being tried under essentially Syrian criminal law and that makes it difficult to get them in court on some of the more serious crimes.
So coming back then to the trial of Mr Atef Najib, why is his trial so important here?
There's a few reasons. One, he's a first cousin of Bashar al-Assad. He was captured in a raid in January twenty twenty-five, and he's probably the most senior official from Bashar's regime currently in the custody of the new Syrian government. But I also think his involvement in Dera, which is a city where really the Syrian revolution and these protests that he is alleged to have repressed are what kick started the whole revolution that turned into fifteen years of civil war. So Atif Najib is the face of that very early, very callous repression. He's a name that every Syrian knows. So there's an element of symbolism. He wasn't the face of the regime, but he's inherently associated with that repression right at the beginning of the Syrian Revolution.
And how do you expect his trial to go?
I mean, firstly, this is going to be a big media and public spectacle in Syria. Everyone is watching. If you go to the court on days when there are hearings, hundreds of his alleged victims, their families, people who lost relatives in Detta are queuing up outside the court trying to get in. Nearly 18 months after the fall of Bashar, many people feel the government really hasn't done anything regarding transitional justice.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the background of Atef Najib’s trial and why is it significant?
0:03–2:57
2
How does Syria’s post‑war judicial system handle transitional justice?
2:57–6:11
3
Why is the trial of a senior Assad cousin seen as a test of legitimacy?
6:11–9:43
4
What legal gaps exist in Syrian law for prosecuting war crimes?
9:43–13:27
5
How are international statutes like the Geneva Convention being used in the trial?
13:27–16:42
6
Why is the Syrian government keen to avoid a ‘show trial’ and win global credibility?
16:42–19:37
7
What is driving the rapid growth of China’s whisky‑making industry?
19:37–21:54
8
How are Chinese distilleries blending Scottish traditions with local ingredients?
21:54–24:28