A turban stained with blood...

On Thursday, a video suddenly appeared on my social media feed, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing: an elderly man with graying hair and beard inside a cage in a courtroom… wearing striped prison clothes… answering the presiding judge's questions gently and with propriety… silently listening to the charges against him, with no emotion, expression, or reaction on his face…

The scene was taking place in Damascus, the capital of Syria, and the person on trial was Sheikh Ahmed Bedreddin Hassoun, the once-powerful and arrogant mufti of the Bashar al-Assad era. Hassoun, who was detained at Damascus Airport on March 25 of last year while about to travel with his family to Jordan, had been in custody ever since. Knowing very well who Hassoun was, what a critical role he played in the Baath regime's oppression of the people, and how cheaply he sold his office, when I read the news that he had failed to flee the country, the words that escaped my mouth were: "I wish they would just try him and hang him!"

On the other hand, I was genuinely afraid that Syria's new administration would pardon Hassoun—or worse, instead of trying him, sweep him out of sight and let the public forget him—in order "not to give the world an unpleasant image." Hassoun must have thought the same way, because after the fall of the Baath regime, he did not flee Syria immediately, and when he finally decided to leave, he even attempted to use the VIP lounge at Damascus Airport. Fortunately, my fears did not materialize. Hassoun—as he deserves—has begun to be tried publicly in a cage. This is why I said at the beginning, "I couldn't believe what I was seeing."

Since Ahmed Bedreddin Hassoun, throughout his long career, presented himself with a huge turban on his head and robes trailing on the ground, some of my readers may find my remark "I wish they would hang him!" strange. After all, religious attire has an effect on those who see it. So, to clarify what I said, let me explain how Hassoun became such a despicable war criminal and enemy of humanity:

Since I have touched on this before, I will not go into the full details of his life. Let us simply recall that although he was the son of a respected Naqshbandi sheikh by the name of Muhammad Adib Hassoun from Aleppo, from his youth onward he began working for the Syrian internal intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, causing countless of his school and madrasa friends to be imprisoned, thereby proving his loyalty to the Baath. After adding the office of mufti in 2005 to the sheikhly position he inherited from his father, Hassoun became entirely the Baath's willing servant. While the Syrian people did not know him well, from 2011 onward he constantly used the media and social media, legitimizing the Syrian army's horrific attacks that rained bombs on innocent civilians with verses from the Quran and hadiths, applauding them, and issuing fatwas for the mass killing of tens of thousands of prisoners in the dungeons… He stood out as a fiery demagogue who did not even blink while doing all this. He harbored a deep and genuine admiration for the Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, the "butcher of Aleppo" and architect of the ethnic cleansing there. We would hear Hassoun praising the Baath's criminal shabiha militias to the skies, then raining threats on women and children who sought refuge in Idlib: "The Turkish army cannot save you!"

What distinguishes Ahmed Bedreddin Hassoun from the other fanatical supporters of the Baath dictatorship is undoubtedly the damage he has done to the values he was—supposedly—representing. Though belonging to Ahl al-Sunnah, he accepted becoming the servant of a deviant minority regime. He used verses from the Quran and hadiths as a cover for the sins of one of the world's most brutal regimes. He turned the pulpits and minbars of mosques into stages where Muslim butchers were praised. He filled the Prophet's entrusted mihrabs with puppets praising tyrants. He stained the turban and robes he wore with the blood of the innocent. He equated Naqshbandism—one of the most fruitful schools of our spiritual tradition—in the minds of the Syrian people with serving tyrants…

The list goes on. Each of these crimes points to a separate sin. The mistakes of those who know are not the same as those of the ignorant. Especially when they are committed persistently, they can no longer be called mere mistakes.

The court has adjourned Hassoun's case until July to hear more witnesses. We will continue to follow the process, glued to the back of its neck. For the sake of the innocent women, children, and elderly whose hands he stained with blood…