Mohammad al-Shaar served as interior minister between 2011 and 2018 during the Syrian Civil War [Getty/file photo]
Syria’s former Assad-era interior minister, Mohammad al-Shaar, has reportedly surrendered himself to the country’s new transitional government on Tuesday.
In a video clip shared online, al-Shaar can be seen arriving in a car accompanied by mediators.
In the footage, one of the mediators introduces him and says that his “dignity must be preserved and he must be appreciated for handing himself over”, and encourages former senior figures from the Assad regime to follow suite.
The former minister reportedly stressed that the ministry of interior “was not responsible for unofficial and security prisons, but only official ones”, according to Al-Arabiya.
Al-Shaar’s surrender comes just under two months after opposition rebels toppled the Assad regime, after capturing Damascus under the “Deterrence of Aggression” operation.
The HTS Islamist rebels, led by recently-appointed interim president Ahmed Al-Sharaa, carried out a lightening offensive in late November last year, seizing several key cities including Aleppo, Hama and Homs.
Following the capture of the capital, Assad soon fled, marking the end of the family’s decades-long rule.
Al-Sharaa, shortly after assuming leadership of Syria’s interim government, pledged to pursue senior figures from the Assad regime responsible for torture or any other crimes against the Syrian people, as well as rid the country of any Assad-era weapons as well as narcotic drugs, namely captagon.
Al-Shaar, a high-ranking military officer, served as minister of the interior from 2011 to 2018 under Assad and was a major general in the notorious Syrian army.
He joined the armed forces in 1971 and climbed up its ranks. He held several positions including chief of military security in both Tartous and Aleppo, as well as being in charge of security in Lebanon’s Tripoli during Syria’s invasion in the 1980s.
He also served as commander and chief of the Syrian military police and held that position prior to his appointment as interior minister.
He was a member of the so-called crisis cell formed by Assad to coordinate a “response” to the 2011 uprising against his regime and was at the center of much debate over his fate after reports emerged that he had been killed by a bomb in front of Damascus’ National Security headquarters in July 2012.
Al-Shaar was wounded in the incident and was reportedly transferred to a Beirut hospital for treatment. Al-Shaar cut his treatment short in Lebanon and subsequently returned to Syria, amid fears that he would be arrested for his role in the 1986 massacre in Tripoli’s Bab al-Tabbaneh which killed 700 people, according to the Associated Press.
In 2011, the former minister was sanctioned by the EU for “involvement in violence against demonstrators” amid the peaceful protests against Assad – which then triggered the Syrian civil war.
He was also sanctioned by Switzerland for similar reasons.
Al-Shaar’s surrender comes after a cousin of Assad’s and former head of the political security branch in Daraa, Atef Najib, was arrested by interim authorities on Friday.
