Atef Najib was the security chief of Deraa in southern Syria when protests broke out there in 2011. He told parents of detained children to forget about their sons, go home and make new ones. A first cousin of Bashar al-Assad, he was captured in a raid in January 2025 by the new government of Ahmed al-Sharaa and is the most prominent former regime figure now in custody. He went on trial in Damascus on April 26th 2026 for murder, torture and orchestrating massacres. On May 10th he denied all charges and blamed Syria's other security agencies.
It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start life as children.