DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities said Tuesday that they had arrested a former air force chief of staff under Bashar Assad who was sanctioned by the European Union including for his role in chemical attacks.
Since Assad’s December 2024 overthrow, Syria’s new Islamist authorities have periodically announced the arrest of military and security officials involved in atrocities during Syria’s more than decade-long civil war.
Last month, authorities launched the first trials for such senior figures as part of their commitment to providing justice for victims and their families.
An interior ministry statement announced the arrest of Jayez Al-Moussa, “chief of staff for the air force during the era of the former regime” in a security operation.
Moussa served for more than four decades in Syria’s military under the Assad dynasty.
After the civil war erupted in 2011, he took control of the 20th division, which ran six military airports, before becoming air force chief of staff in early 2015.
For a time, he was responsible for coordinating with Russian forces, which intervened militarily in Syria’s conflict on Assad’s behalf later that year.
After retiring in 2016, Moussa was named governor of northeast Syria’s Hasakah province.
He hails from an Arab tribe in the eastern Deir Ezzor province and is known for his absolute loyalty to Assad and his calls to crush the former leader’s adversaries.
The EU added Moussa to its sanctions list in 2017, saying he was responsible “for the violent repression of the civilian population in Syria, including the use of chemical weapons attacks” during his tenure as air force chief.
Syrian authorities have recently announced the arrest of a number of Assad-era figures, including two former generals detained on Friday, one of whom is accused of involvement in a 2013 chemical attack on a Damascus suburb.
