Ziad Mahmoud al-Amayiri sat with pictures of his 10 misplaced members of the family specified by entrance of him.
“There are two choices: both the federal government provides me justice, or I take justice myself.”
Al-Amayiri’s risk is directed at one man: Fadi Saqr.
Saqr was a commander of the Nationwide Defence Forces (NDF), a militia loyal to Bashar al-Assad that was accused of atrocities just like the 2013 Tadamon massacre, the place, in keeping with native Syrian officers, activists and leaked movies, dozens of individuals had been led to a pit and shot.
Nonetheless, Saqr denies any hyperlinks to what occurred in Tadamon. He informed The New York Occasions that he was not the NDF’s chief on the time.
However al-Amayiri insists Saqr ought to be behind bars for the disappearance of his family members, who he says had been arrested by NDF fighters in 2013.
As an alternative, Saqr is strolling free.
Hassan Soufan, a member of the government-appointed Committee for Civil Peace, says Saqr was “granted secure passage” by Syria’s new leadership “originally of the liberation”.
Soufan mentioned Saqr’s launch was a part of a method to calm tensions due to his hyperlinks to Alawite groups within the area.
“Nobody can deny that this secure passage contributed to averting bloodshed,” mentioned Soufan.
However that was not sufficient to fulfill many Syrians, particularly in Tadamon, the place residents demanded that Saqr be tried in court docket.
“How was the federal government in a position to forgive Fadi Saqr with the blood of our households?” mentioned al-Amayiri, talking of the ten family members he has misplaced.
“I don’t suppose they may be capable to maintain him accountable after that.”
Syria’s fragile peace
A yr on because the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s new management is coping with the very actual hazard of individuals feeling annoyed by justice efforts being delayed or denied.
After taking energy, interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa mentioned he would prioritise “achieving civil peace” and “prosecuting criminals who spilt Syrian blood … by real transitional justice”.
However the final yr has been marked by sectarian fighting – and there was a marked rise in so-called revenge killings.
As of November 2025, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that 1,301 folks had died in what it described as “retaliatory actions” because the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.
These statistics don’t embrace the folks killed in the course of the violent clashes on both the Syrian coast in March or in Suwayda in July.
The coastal massacres alone resulted within the demise of 1,400 folks, primarily civilians, in keeping with a United Nations report.
The clashes in Suwayda, triggered by preventing between Druze and Bedouin communities, killed a whole bunch, nearly all of them Druze.
In his first interview with an English-language outlet, Abdel Basit Abdel Latif, head of the Nationwide Fee for Transitional Justice, acknowledged the dangers of stalled justice.
“It’s sure that any Syrian citizen will really feel that if the transitional justice course of doesn’t begin correctly, they may resort to their very own methods, which is one thing we don’t want for,” Abdel Latif mentioned.
Ibrahim al-Assil from the Atlantic Council says it’s an instance of a conundrum typically seen in transitional justice: pursuing justice versus holding the peace.
“Which one comes first? It’s crucial to understand that they do have to work hand in hand, however issues are by no means perfect.”
Transitional justice in Syria
The federal government has arrange two our bodies to supervise transitional justice.
One, headed by Abdel Latif, tackles transitional justice extra broadly, addressing violations dedicated by the previous regime.
The opposite is targeted on investigating the estimated 300,000 Syrians thought-about lacking and broadly believed to have disappeared into al-Assad’s notorious prison system and buried in mass graves.
Whereas the size of the lacking is commonly reported as greater than 100,000 folks, the top of the Nationwide Fee on Lacking Individuals believes it’s roughly 300,000.
Ever because the fall, there have been issues that this quantity is rising, with UN Human Rights spokesperson Thameen al-Kheetan saying they “proceed to obtain worrying experiences about dozens of abductions and enforced disappearances”.
Each nationwide committees have met worldwide consultants to attract classes from different transitional justice processes.
However Danny al-Baaj, vp for advocacy and public relations on the Syrian Discussion board, believes “we’re far behind any actual progress”.
“A framework remains to be lacking. A particular legislation on transitional justice remains to be lacking,” he mentioned.
The households of the a whole bunch of hundreds of forcibly disappeared Syrians are additionally demanding solutions.
Wafa Ali Mustafa is a Syrian activist whose father, Ali Mustafa, was arrested within the capital, Damascus, 12 years in the past.
“Households of the detainees usually are not happening the streets every single day saying that now you need to dig mass graves,” she mentioned.
“They’re saying a minimum of talk with us, a minimum of tell us what you’re doing.”
The pinnacle of the Nationwide Fee on Lacking Individuals, Mohammad Reda Jalkhi, defined that Syria wants an enormous quantity of sources.
“We have to do very onerous work on constructing capability, getting ready the infrastructure, accumulating information, analysing information, and equipping laboratories,” Jalkhi mentioned.
“All this doesn’t occur in a single day.”
The federal government has made dozens of arrests, together with folks linked to the previous regime.
It has been posting shiny movies on social media of jail guards making confessions and suspects showing earlier than judges.
However questions stay about transparency.
“After all, each time they arrest somebody, folks get very, very glad and grateful,” Wafa added.
“Sadly, we don’t actually know what’s taking place to those folks, we don’t know the place they’re being held, we don’t know what sort of investigation they’re being uncovered to.”
There may be additionally ambiguity round arrests of safety and army personnel who had been linked to sectarian violence in Suwayda earlier this yr, which killed a whole bunch of individuals.
However the lead investigator of the Suwayda killings declined to say how many.
“My downside with the mass arrests,” mentioned al-Baaj, “is that it’s not in keeping with a plan.”
“We don’t understand how the federal government is doing its work.”
Holding perpetrators accountable
One of many big hopes among Syrians is for public, nationwide trials of Assad-era warfare crimes.
Hasan al-Hariri helped to smuggle greater than 1.3 million items of documentary proof out of Syria.
Because the begin of the warfare in 2011, he has been working for the Fee for Worldwide Justice and Accountability (CIJA), which specialises in accumulating legal proof.
Al-Hariri led a group of people that would find and retrieve paperwork from locations like regime intelligence buildings and police stations – in areas the place al-Assad’s forces had been pushed out, or whereas preventing was nonetheless happening.
They then got here up with artistic methods to sneak the dear paperwork by army checkpoints and finally throughout the border.
“Typically we used to reap the benefits of transferring furnishings,” al-Hariri mentioned.
“We used to place the paperwork beneath the automotive’s ground and fill it with the furnishings of the home.”
CIJA now has an unlimited archive of safety, army and intelligence paperwork that hyperlink warfare crimes to regime officers on the highest ranges, all the way in which as much as al-Assad himself.
“International locations that noticed conflicts, corresponding to Bosnia, started work after 5 years and began accumulating proof, so the proof was gone, or just a few easy issues might be collected,” al-Hariri mentioned.
“We labored in the course of the battle, so the proof was alive.”
However whereas that means Syria has a head-start within the judicial course of, nationwide trials are nonetheless a good distance away.
The Assad-era authorized system remains to be being reformed.
“It wants authorized infrastructure, administrative infrastructure, courts, judges, and sources,” mentioned al-Baaj.
However he added that there’s an eagerness amongst Syrians.
“All of us need to see these public trials, need to see the entire means of transitional justice beginning.”
That features folks like al-Amayiri, who needs to see Saqr face trial.
However he says his largest need is to have the ability to mourn his family members.
“It’s now a dream for us to have a grave for our household to go to,” he mentioned.
“To know that these are their stays, and that they’re buried right here.”
