Shadi Mohammed al Waisi is the newly appointed Minister of Justice in the transitional government in Syria. Al Waisi has faced criticism from Syrian activists and international media after videos surfaced showing him ordering the execution of women accused of prostitution in Idlib in 2015. During this time, he was a member of Jabhat al Nusrah and served as a judge.
Al Waisi’s appointment as the Minister of Justice takes place as the Biden administration and the West seek to engage with Syria’s new government led by Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), which deposed the Assad regime on December 7, 2024, alongside a coalition of insurgent groups. Hayat Tahrir al Sham, a US-listed Foreign Terrorist Organization for its ties to Al Qaeda and the successor to Jabhat al Nusrah, has attempted to project itself as a moderate force in Syria. However, Al Waisi’s appointment casts further doubt on HTS’s claims of moderation.
Born in Aleppo in 1985, Al Waisi holds a degree in Islamic sharia. He began his career as an Islamic education teacher before becoming an imam and preacher for seven years. After the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, he helped establish the Sharia Authority in Aleppo’s Daharat Awad district, where he served as a judge. He then helped establish Aleppo’s Four-Party Sharia Authority in 2012, rising through the ranks as a military penal judge, an appeals judge, and eventually a public prosecutor. Al Waisi also headed several sharia courts in Aleppo, including in the towns of Salqin, Haritan, and Northern Badia. Al Waisi has been a member of Jabhat al Nusrah and its successor, HTS, since at least 2015.
Within the HTS-organized Syrian Salvation Government, Al Waisi held several positions, including as a member of the Civil Criminal Court, president of the Criminal Appeal Authority, and president of the Court of Appeals. He was also a member of the Supreme Judicial Council. During Al Waisi’s tenure as a judge, he was known to issue verdicts that included death by beheading and the amputations of limbs.
Before being appointed Minister of Justice of the Syrian transitional government, Al Waisi was the Minister of Justice in the Syrian Salvation Government in its sixth session beginning in January 2019. Since his appointment by HTS leader Ahmed al Sharaa, also known as Mohammad Jolani, Al Waisi has made several notable comments, including, “We pray that Allah helps us implement the shari’a.” Al Sharaa has been a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the United States State Department since 2013.
During Al Waisi’s tenure as part of Jabhat al Nusrah’s sharia court, the court issued several controversial rulings, some of which coincided with his involvement in specific cases. Notably, on one occasion, 10 individuals were executed in 2015 under the court’s orders. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), two men were executed for “adultery,” while eight others were charged with “collaboration with and support for the regime.” The executions, carried out by gunfire, occurred in Aleppo’s Al Shaar neighborhood, and the bodies were subsequently transported to an undisclosed location.
In another ruling in 2015, the sharia court ordered the release of 27 ISIS members after determining they were not involved in shedding Muslim blood. Separately, in 2023, the court in Idlib sentenced a young woman in her twenties to execution for appearing on the TikTok app, although it remains unconfirmed whether this sentence was carried out.
