Nureddin al-Atassi

Noureddin Mohammed Ali al-Atassi (1929 – 3 December 1992) (Arabic: نور الدين بن محمد علي الأتاسي Nūr ad-Dīn Muṣṭafā al-'Atasī) was President of Syria from February 1966 to November 1970. Though a long-time ideologue of the powerful Baath Party who became its General Secretary as well as President of the Republic, he was considered to be largely a ceremonial figurehead, with real power vested in the Deputy General Secretary, Salah Jadid. He was a medical doctor by training, and in that capacity aided the Algerian forces against the French in the Algerian War of Independence. In 1970 he was deposed along with Salah Jadid in a coup by Hafez al-Assad, his defense minister. He was imprisoned without trial from that time until just before his...