DAMASCUS: A Damascus criminal court has heard testimony from prosecution witnesses during the second session of the trial of Ahmad Hassoun, Syria’s former grand mufti, who faces charges including inciting violence and justifying killings during the rule of the ousted Assad regime.
The Fourth Criminal Court hearing on Thursday was attended by representatives of Syrian and international human rights organizations and presided over by Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan, with advisers Abdul Hamid Mohammad al-Hammoud and Hossam Hussein Abdul Rahman. Public Prosecutor Judge Omar Mahmoud al-Radi represented the prosecution.
The court held its first session on June 25, when prosecutors formally presented the charges against Hassoun.
According to the indictment, Hassoun abused his position as grand mufti to advance personal interests and maintained unofficial ties with deposed President Bashar Assad, former intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk, senior military officers and leaders of sectarian militias.
Prosecutors also accuse Hassoun of delivering speeches to officers and members of the former regime’s armed forces urging them to support military operations against opposition groups.
The indictment alleges that he made public statements inciting violence against civilians in opposition-held areas and refugees who had fled the deposed regime’s repression, particularly in eastern Aleppo and Idlib, and called on regime forces to destroy those areas.
Hassoun is also accused of publicly endorsing military commanders and other figures accused of war crimes, including Issam Zahreddine and Qassem Soleimani, and supporting Russian and Iranian military interventions in Syria despite alleged widespread violations committed by their forces and allied militias.
Zahreddine was a prominent general in the Syrian Republican Guard and Soleimani was a commander of Iran’s Quds Force who led Iranian military interventions in Arab countries. Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad, Iraq, on January 3, 2020.
Under Syrian law, Hassoun faces charges including incitement to intentional killing, complicity in homicide, participation in acts aimed at provoking civil war and sectarian conflict, incitement of sectarian and racial hatred, and abuse of influence for personal gain.
The proceedings form part of Syria’s transitional justice process, which seeks to establish the truth, deliver justice for victims and hold those accused of crimes accountable through judicial proceedings.
