Syrian authorities in Aleppo arrest former MP and police chief under Assad regime

The Syrian Counterterrorism Branch in the northern city of Aleppo arrested Abdel Razzak Barakat, a former police chief and MP under the defunct regime of Bashar Assad.

The Ministry of Interior said that Barakat was involved in suppressing peaceful demonstrations in Homs at the beginning of the Syrian revolution in 2011 while serving as the city’s police commander.

Barakat was transferred to the police command in Tabqa, in the Raqqa governorate of northeast Syria, and later became a member of parliament, representing the National Progressive Front, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.

Syrian authorities affirmed their commitment to prosecuting anyone involved in crimes against civilians during the former Assad regime.

This week, the Internal Security Forces arrested five former military officials in the coastal Lataika province. Two of those detained previously acted as military judges and the three others as military doctors at the former Tishreen Military Hospital in the capital Damascus. All five face accusations of murder and of hiding crimes committed against civilians in Syrian prisons before the fall of Assad on Dec. 8, 2024.