In May 2026, two Australian women – mother-and-daughter Kawsar and Zeinab Ahmad – were arrested by the Australian authorities following their return from Syria. The duo have been charged with crimes against humanity of enslavement, as well as with slavery offences including possessing and using a slave and engaging with slave trading.

CIJA provided extensive support to both the original trial and appeals process. The verdicts rendered against Al Abdallah relied on CCTV footage collected by CIJA investigators. The collected footage detail Da’esh operations within a children’s hospital in Aleppo which the group occupied and used as a headquarters and detention facility. CIJA’s Directors of Management and External Relations and Operations and Investigations each provided expert witness testimony in the course of the trial and the subsequent appeal.

Nerma Jelacic spoke with Carolina de Lima for El Pais about the drive to document the crimes of the Assad regime during the conflict and the mobilisation of Syrian activists and NGOs to seek justice wherever possible, in the absence of an international response.

Levant 24: Part 1 of an extended interview with Nerma Jelacic (Director of Management and External Relations) about Syria's transitional justice process, the historic significance of Syria's first public trials after decades of Assad-era impunity.

afik A. was convicted in the Netherlands today for 19 counts of torture, rape and sexual violence as crimes against humanity, carried out in his role as the Head of the Interrogation Department of the pro-Assad paramilitary, the National Defence Force, in Salamiyah, Hama between 2013-2014.

Carlotta Gall for the New York Times spoke to Nerma Jelacic (CIJA Director for External Relations) at the start of the trial of Brigadier General Al-Halabi and Lieutenant Colonel Abu Rukbah in Vienna, who are on trial for torture, sexual coercion, aggravated coercion and serious bodily harm, carried out in Raqqa between 2011-2013.

On Sunday, the Damascus University School of Law hosted an International Workshop on International Criminal Justice and Prosecution Mechanisms, in cooperation with CIJA and the Syrian Emergency Taskforce.

On 04 May 2026, a Swedish court convicted Mahmoud S. a 55 year-old man with Swedish nationality was convicted for two counts of war crimes for his role in a pro-Regime militia in Al Yarmouk, southern Damascus.

A delegation of senior war crimes prosecutors from Donetsk region in Ukraine has arrived in London today to discuss their work to investigate and prosecute crimes relating to culture, cultural property and heritage. The visit forms a part of a joint project led by Blue Shield International (BSI) and The Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA)

On Friday 20 March, Sabri Essid was convicted for genocide and crimes against humanity against the Yezidis. The Cour de Assises in Paris found Essid guilty of direct perpetration of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against two Yezidi women and children in Syria. He was also convicted of complicity in genocide for participating in the transfer of an enslaved Yezidi woman and her children in Syria.

On 16 March 2026, Samir Ousman al-Sheikh was convicted by the US Central District Court for California for three counts of torture and one count of conspiracy to commit torture carried out in his role as the Head of Adra Prison.

On 05 March 2026, CIJA and Temple Garden Chambers hosted a panel discussion, “The Future of International Criminal Law in a Changing World,” at The London Library in what was a thoughtful and engaging evening.

CIJA’s Executive Director Bill Wiley joined The Torontonian Podcast, where he discussed the moral and physical courage of CIJA’s Syrian investigators, who spent 14 years collecting evidence of the Assad regime’s brutality during the civil war.
Listen here: https://torontonianpodcast.ca/ep207/

One year after Syria’s liberation, CIJA honours the resilience of its people and the courage of survivors. We also reflect on the years of quiet, often clandestine work of 40 Syrian men and women that make up CIJA Syria to secure evidence and preserve the truth about the atrocities committed by the regime. In this video CIJA’s Shadow Warriors talk about their dangerous work to unmask Regime perpetrators during the war. As Syria moves forward, our commitment remains focused on assisting the Syrian quest to rebuild and strengthen the institutions that will lead the country’s transition to justice. 

CIJA was honoured to organise the visit of our partners from the National Police of Ukraine to the United States last week.

The delegation met with Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI at the Human Rights and War Crimes Center, exchanging insights on innovative methods that combine advanced technologies with traditional investigative practice to document war crimes.

They also briefed the U.S. Helsinki Commission, contributing to essential dialogue on accountability, evidence collection, and the pursuit of justice.

CIJA is proud to facilitate these engagements and to strengthen the collaborative efforts needed to advance justice and accountability for atrocity crimes and is grateful to the Department of State and INL for their support

(Al Jazeera) Hasan Al Hariri, CIJA Syria Director spoke with Al Jazeera’s Sandra Gathmann and Harriet Tathman about the work undertaken by CIJA’s Syrian investigators to collect and preserve more than 1.3 million pages of Assad Regime documents, often at great danger, during the conflict.

On 06 December, CIJA participated in the “Syria Ukraine Workshop on Ending Impunity and Strengthening Civil Society” organised by the Syrian Emergency Task Force, Madaniya and PIJ Lab, in Damascus.

Leading human rights defenders from Ukraine shared their experience in documenting crimes, supporting survivors and building justice mechanisms during wartime, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk, PIJL co-founder Nataliya Gumenyuk and Crimean Tartar activist Leniie Umerova.

Hasan Al Hariri, CIJA Syria Director joined the Ukrainian human rights activists, where he discussed different approaches to war crimes documentation and justice. Drawing on CIJA s experience in both Syria and Ukraine, Hasan called for the shift of focus to rebuilding the national institutions in Syria which will ultimately bear the responsibility for delivering accountability and transitional justice.

CIJA stands ready to support the Syrian efforts to design effective transitional justice mechanisms and is in discussion with the relevant authorities about concrete help that can be offered in the short and long term.

(Qantara) Hasan Al Hariri, CIJA Syria Director spoke at length to Andrea Backhaus on the challenges that transitional justice institutions face in Syria and the urgent need for assistance:“More resources are urgently needed... Syrian investigators and judicial officials still face a severe lack of equipment and resources.”

Yesterday, Austrian authorities indicted the former Syrian Brigadier General Khaled Al-Halabi and Mussab A. R on charges of torture, serious bodily harm and sexual coercion.  Al-Halibi’s indictment comes ten years after the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) located him in Vienna and shared relevant materials with the Austrian authorities.

Hasan Al Hariri, CIJA’s Syria Lead Investigator spoke to Al Jazeera’s Sandra Guthmann about the work of his team to preserve 1.3 million Syrian Regime documents. Once a ‘shadow warrior’ working anonymously, she says “this man risked his life to help smuggle 1.3 million documents out of the country with the aim to hold Assad to account”

Watch the full documentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SFG-nYisDg

or the excerpt of Hasan here: https://x.com/AJEnglish/status/1985720137870192755

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