Bereaved families demand death penalty, starting with Atef Najib, a former general and cousin of the ousted dictator, who was allegedly behind the torture of children in 2011

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The first public trial in Syria of officials linked to the rule of former president Bashar al-Assad opened Sunday in Damascus.

Atef Najib, a former Syrian army brigadier general who was head of the Political Security Branch in southern Syria’s Daraa province under Assad and who is also a cousin of the former president, appeared in the courtroom to face charges related to “crimes against the Syrian people,” state-run news agency SANA reported.

Najib was in that position in 2011, when teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a school wall in Daraa were arrested and tortured.

The case became a catalyst for mass protests against the repressive policies of Assad’s security forces.

The protests were met by a brutal government crackdown and spiraled into a 14-year civil war that ended with Assad’s ouster…