He oversaw the public executions of two women. Now he's Syria's new justice minister.
A resurfaced video of Syria's Justice Minister Shadi al-Waisi overeeing the execution of a woman for adultery, raises questions about the country's new regime.
DAMASCUS, Syria — In a shaky video recorded in 2015, a woman cloaked in black and kneeling on a public street begs to see her children for the last time. Instead, a man identified as Shadi al-Waisi, Syria’s new justice minister, motions to a gunman, who shoots her in the back of the head.
A second video shows al-Waisi reading out a death sentence for another woman, who, like the first, was convicted of corruption and prostitution. She is shot and drops to the ground.
The videos were recorded a decade ago, when al-Waisi was a judge for Jabhat al-Nusra, an Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria’s northern Idlib province. But they have re-emerged and are spreading widely on social media after he was appointed to his high-profile role in Syria’s new government, raising difficult questions about the country’s new leaders as they try to distance themselves from their extremist roots.
The videos were widely circulated at the time, but it wasn’t until earlier this month that Verify Sy, a respected Syrian news outlet, confirmed that al-Waisi was the man dispensing the sentences. Using specialized technical tools, Verify Sy said it matched al-Waisi’s features and voice to that of the man in the video.
It also interviewed a number of people who witnessed the executions and an official of the current government who confirmed that the man in the video was al-Waisi, but who went on to say that the executions were carried out during a stage that Syria had now moved beyond.
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