Syria hands life sentence to Jerusalem Brigades terrorist linked with IRGC, state media announces

Also known as the Jerusalem Brigades, the Liwa al-Quds’s members were largely recruited from Bab an-Nayrab Palestinian Refugee Camp, just east of Aleppo.

A Syrian court sentenced Abdul Jabbar Ghazi Arziq to life imprisonment after convicting him of joining an armed group affiliated with Liwa al-Quds, a predominantly Palestinian militia that supported the Assad regime and has been linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), state media reported on Wednesday.

Also known as the Jerusalem Brigades, the Liwa al-Quds’s members were largely recruited from Bab an-Nayrab Palestinian Refugee Camp, just east of Aleppo. According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, the group holds light arms, mortars, and short-range rockets and has close connections with both the PFLP and IRGC.

In April 2023, Liwa al-Quds claimed responsibility for the multiple rockets launched from Syrian territory toward the southern part of the Golan Heights, targeting the Israeli towns of Netur and Avni Eitan, according to the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese Al Mayadeen network.

The courts found that the group had aimed to incite civil war, promote sectarian violence and seize cities, and the acts were classified as war crimes and crimes against humanity given the human rights abuses of the Assad regime.

Life sentence due to gravity of acts, threat to civilians, lawyer says

Lawyer Radif Mustafa, director of the Accountability and Prosecution Department at the National Commission for Transitional Justice, told SANA on Wednesday that the gravity of the acts and the threat they posed to civilians and social peace were among the considerations underpinning the life sentence.

The court rejected the defendant’s claim for mitigating circumstances and ruled that he would not be eligible for a gender or special amnesty in the future.

Mustafa told SANA the ruling confirmed that political changes or changing circumstances would not erase crimes and added that more would be done to ensure victims of the Assad regime receive justice.