Damascus:
The new authorities of Syria announced on Friday the arrest of a cousin of the expelled leader Bashar al-Assad, accused of orchestrating a repression in Daraa, where the uprising of 2011 began.
Atif Najib, the former Chief of Political Security in Daraa in southern Syria, was arrested in Latakia, on the west coast, reported the official Sana news agency, citing a senior security official.
The monitor of the Human Rights War of the Syrian Observatory said it is the highest range that stops, since the combatants led by Islamists seized Assad on December 8.
“The Criminal Atif Najib has been sent to the competent authorities to be tried and responsible for the crimes he committed against the Syrian people,” Sana said.
The protest movement against Assad began in Daraa on March 15, 2011, after 15 students were arrested for allegedly writing anti -government slogans in the city walls.
Residents said the students were tortured, which led to a protest to demand their release that ended in bloodshed.
Najib, blamed for repression, was fired shortly after. He was on a list of sanctions of the United States Treasury along with other Syrian officials.
The national uprising was brutally crushed by Assad, spiral in a civil war that has killed more than half a million people.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a union feed).
By
