A cage stood in the middle of the courtroom at the Palace of Justice, near al-Hamidiyah souk in central Damascus.
Around 11 am on Sunday, Atef Najib, cousin of ousted President Bashar al-Assad, expressionless and dressed in a brown striped prison uniform, is brought into the iron cage and sits down.
Najib, a former head of security, is accused of directing a violent crackdown on protesters during Syria's 2011 uprising and faces charges of "crimes against the Syrian people".
Facing him is a panel bearing the face of Hamza al-Khatib, a 13-year-old boy who became a symbol of the early days of the Syrian uprising.
In March 2011, in the wake of the Arab Spring, teenagers wrote anti-regime slogans on a school wall in Deraa, including "Doctor, it's your turn", in reference to Assad, a trained ophthalmologist.
