Two videos claiming to show the new Syrian Minister of Justice Shadi Al-Waisi taking part in public executions in the countryside of Idlib in northern Syria in 2015 have been circulating on social media after his appointment as Minister of Justice in the new Syrian transitional government led by Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a successor of the jihadist al-Nusra front.
In the first video, Al-Waisi appears to be standing behind a kneeling woman, reading out a sentence against her for alleged corruption and prostitution, and then signalling an executioner to kill her with a bullet to the head. In the other video, he can be seen among the spectators of a public execution where again a woman is executed with a bullet to the head. Both of these videos were recorded in January 2015, at a time when according to Wikipedia, Al-Waisi was an al-Nusra Front judge in Idlib.
The videos were fact-checked by the “Verify-sy” webpage, which states that by comparing new videos of Al-Waisi and the videos of the public executions with the help of artificial intelligence they were able to verify that the man reading out the verdicts in the videos was in fact Shadi Al-Waisi. For further confirmation, Verify-sy also reached out to the new Syrian administration, and stated that “a senior official confirmed that the man in the videos is indeed the current Minister of Justice, Shadi Al-Waisi”.
The senior official reportedly calls the public executions “the enforcement of the law at a specific time and place, where the procedures were carried out in accordance with the laws in effect at that time” and that they reflect “a stage we have moved beyond, in light of the current legal and procedural transformations”, so confirming that the executions were carried out according to the law under the Syrian Salvation Government, formed by Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in northwest Syria in November 2017.
Al-Waisi served as head both of the Civil Felonies Court and of the Criminal Appeals Court under the Syrian Salvation Government. He began serving as Minister of Justice in the Syrian transitional government led by HTS in December 2024 after a decision by the transistional administration that ministers of the Salvation Government would remain in place until March 2025.
The videos increase concerns about violent practices against women in areas controlled by HTS, and have renewed fears of an escalation of violence against women under the new Syrian government led by HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa (formerly known as Abu Muhammad al-Jolani). These fears have also been reinforced by images of al-Sharaa in the company of Ahmad al-Hayes, leader of the Ahrar al-Sharqiya, known for ita group known for its involvement in the targeted assassination of Kurdish politician Hevrin Khalaf.
