Assad-era minister turns himself in

A former Syrian minister under ousted president Bashar al-Assad has turned himself in, the interior ministry said Tuesday, one of the highest-profile figures captured by the new authorities.

"The minister of interior in the government of the defunct regime, Mohammed al-Shaar, surrendered himself to the General Security Department," an interior ministry statement said.

Shaar, the target of US and EU sanctions, had been interior minister from 2011 to 2018 at the height of Syria's 13-year war. The security forces of the new Syrian authorities, which toppled the Assad government late last year, had been looking for Shaar and "raided sites where he had been hiding in the past few days", according to the interior ministry.

Since 2011, Shaar has been under European Union sanctions for involvement in "violence against demonstrators" that took to the streets demanding democracy that year.