From Sharia judge to minister: Syria’s new justice minister tied to public executions
Two harrowing videos surfaced on social media in early January, exposing the dark past of Syria’s newly appointed Justice Minister Shadi Al-Wassi. Verified by FRANCE 24’s Observers, the footage documents the public execution of two women in the Idlib region in 2015. At the time, Al-Wassi was serving as a low-ranking Sharia judge and was responsible for overseeing these executions, in which the women were accused of prostitution.
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The first video shows a woman kneeling, surrounded by armed members of the Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al Qaeda. A man wearing a dark blue jacket and a black taqiyah – a traditional cap worn by some Muslim men –delivers the sentence in his capacity as a Sharia judge. The woman, accused of prostitution, is told, “She’s going to be executed.”
Several sources suggest that this public execution took place in Hafsarja, a village 23 kilometres northwest of Idlib.
FRANCE 24’s Observers were able to geolocate this footage by comparing it to another video from the same village, taken during an anti-regime protest in 2012. Cross-referencing the two videos, they identified identical buildings and structural elements, confirming the location.
By analysing the footage, we were able to identify several consistent elements in both videos, including a building entrance with a distinctive pillar (highlighted in red), several utility poles (marked in black and orange), and a centre road stripe (noted in blue).
In the video of an anti-regime protest, published on January 20, 2012, these same features are clearly visible, such as the central reservation in the road and the utility poles on the left.
These visual clues allowed us to pinpoint the location of the execution as the village of Hafsarja, specifically at a crossroads near the village mosque.
In the execution video, which FRANCE 24 has chosen not to publish, Shadi Al-Wassi can be seen reading out the sentence. Moments later, another man, dressed in black, approaches the kneeling woman and shoots her in the head at close range.
A second video documents another execution. This time, the victim is a woman wearing a black hijab and a red top. She, too, has been accused of prostitution. In the video, the woman can be seen pleading with Al-Nusra fighters to let her see her child one last time – a request they refuse. Instead, she is forced to her knees as the man in the dark blue jacket, believed to be Al-Wassi, announces the verdict. A second man, dressed in black, then steps forward and executes her with a gunshot to the head.
This second execution took place against a wall graffitied with the words: “The al Qaeda forces in Syria, Al-Nusra Front.”
Several posts on social media suggest that the second execution took place in the city of Ma’arit Misrin, approximately 10 kilometres northeast of Idlib.
Despite the poor quality of the footage, we were able to identify several buildings and pieces of street furniture that matched the location.
The timeline of these two executions has also been established. The first, in Hafsarja, occurred on January 20, 2015 and was documented by Syrian Human Rights observers. The second, in Ma’arit Misrin, was also reported by Arab media outlets at the time, including the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya, which published an article about the execution on January 16, 2015.
The individual presiding over both executions as the Sharia judge is now Syria’s justice minister, a revelation that has triggered widespread outrage on social media. The identity of Shadi Al-Wassi has been independently confirmed by the Syrian fact-checking organisation Verify-Sy.
Al-Wassi’s identity has been independently confirmed by the Syrian fact-checking organisation “Verify-Sy by HTS officials, who confirmed his identity.
Formerly a member of the Al-Nusra Front, Al-Wassi later aligned himself with the group’s leader, Ahmad Alsharaa. Alsharaa went on to found Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that seized Damascus in December, marking the end of the Assad family’s decades-long rule.
'It was not a rare incident in that era'
Although Shadi Al-Wassi was a relatively low-ranking Sharia judge at the time, the rulings he delivered reflect the broader policies of the Al-Nusra Front during that period, when public executions were a disturbingly common practice. Thomas Pierret, a leading expert on Islamist groups in Syria, explains:
These executions took place in a specific context known as the ‘Campaign for the Emirate’ between 2014 and 2015, when Al-Nusra acted even more ferociously in reaction to the caliphate declared by the Islamic State organisation in 2014.
Al-Nusra’s first response was to enforce Islamic Sharia law even more strictly, including filmed public executions. They sought to demonstrate a rigorous application of Sharia law and religious piety, particularly in the context of their heated rivalry with the Islamic State.
At the time, the situation was not favourable for Al-Nusra, as ISIS was the dominant military organisation and had the strongest ability to recruit foreign fighters.
These executions, in fact, formed part of Al-Nusra’s general strategy during 2014 and 2015.
I’d estimate that almost all members of Al-Nusra’s judicial system were complicit in this policy. These executions were not isolated incidents. We are discussing a very specific period and a highly particular context here.
Nevertheless, the leaders of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have been unable to fully distance themselves from the judges and fighters involved in such actions, despite this being the official policy of the group at the time.