Post by ⚖️ Philip Grant

#Syria opens trial of Wassim al-Assad On Wednesday, a Damascus criminal court opened the trial of Wassim al-Assad, a cousin of Bashar al-Assad. Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan read out charges including the formation and running of two armed groups, incitement to murder and violence, drug smuggling and trafficking inside Syria and abroad, exploitation of his belonging to the Assad family for looting and extortion, and the provision of weapons, ammunition, funding and logistical support to armed groups operating in Eastern Ghouta. The court qualifies the conduct as #WarCrimes and #CrimesAgainstHumanity. The defendant denied affiliation with the groups, framing his role as one of liaison only. The session follows the launch, two months ago, of public trials of former officials — including Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher in absentia — for civil war atrocities. Former grand mufti Ahmed Hassoun is scheduled to appear on Thursday. The use of crimes against humanity and war crimes qualifications by a Damascus bench against a member of the former ruling family marks a substantive shift. For more than a decade, those characterisations of acts committed under Assad rule came almost exclusively from foreign jurisdictions exercising universal jurisdiction, from UN-mandated mechanisms, or from sanctions designations. The credibility of the process will depend on more than its symbolism. It opens against a backdrop of protests demanding accountability and reports of vandalism, with authorities warning against acts of "revenge". Early domestic trials carry a recurring risk: substituting headline figures for the systematic, evidence-based work that sustainable accountability requires. The standards set in these first cases will determine whether what is being built is justice, or its appearance. https://lnkd.in/eRkKna-G