Syria has arrested Amjad Youssef, the main suspect in the 2013 Tadamon massacre, one of the worst acts of violence attributed to the former regime of Bashar al-Assad, in which 288 civilians were killed.
In a video circulating on social media on Friday, Interior Minister Anas Khattab is seen questioning Youssef directly, asking in a tone of anger and disbelief: "Don’t you have children?"
Youssef, appearing subdued compared to footage from the time of the massacre, responded hesitantly: "I have a daughter and a son."
Khattab continued, "To attack people this way, don’t you have a heart?" adding that the massacre showed “a lack of humanity."
Syrian authorities said earlier on Friday that they arrested Youssef in an operation in a rural area of the Hama governorate.
In a statement, the Interior Ministry said internal security forces captured Youssef, identifying him as the primary perpetrator behind the mass killings in Tadamon, Damascus.
2022 footage
The Tadamon case drew international attention after video footage surfaced documenting the killings.
In 2022, Britain’s The Guardian published footage it said had been leaked by a conscript in a pro-regime militia showing members of the Assad-era Military Intelligence Branch 227 executing at least 41 people and burning their bodies.
The video showed an intelligence officer identified as Youssef shooting blindfolded and bound detainees.
The massacre took place on April 16, 2013, when at least 41 people were killed near the Othman Mosque in the Tadamon neighborhood and their bodies were thrown into a pit, in what became one of the most widely documented atrocities of the war.
Annsar Shahoud, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam Holocaust and Genocide Centre and one of the academics, spent four years documenting the massacre.
Posing as an online fangirl, Shahoud gained Youssef’s trust and ultimately obtained his confessions both on video and audio recording.
Seeking to pursue accountability, the current Syrian administration has repeatedly announced arrests of individuals accused of committing abuses against civilians during the 2011–2024 war.
In December 2024, then regime boss Bashar al-Assad, who ruled Syria for nearly 25 years, fled to Russia, bringing an end to the Baath Party’s decades of rule that began in 1963. A new administration led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa was formed in January 2025.
