Fathallah Saqqal

Fathallah Saqqal (; 1898 – 27 March 1970) was a Syrian attorney, writer and government minister. He was well known for successfully arguing for Ibrahim Hananu's innocence in the French Mandatory courts in Syria regarding Hananu's participation in the Hananu Revolt between 1919 and 1921.

Biography Saqqal was born in Aleppo in 1898 to father Michel Saqqal and mother Magida Baccache. The Saqqals were an Armenian Catholic family. Saqqal graduated from the French law school in Cairo, Egypt. Thereafter, he practiced law in the Mixed Courts of Egypt before returning to Aleppo in 1919 to open his own practice. During his first defense case, he argued his case in the elaborate manner he had grown accustomed to in Egypt, but which was frowned upon by the Ottoman court system and its Syrian successors, which preferred brief defense arguments (Syria had been part of the Ottoman Empire until 1918, after which it came under an informal Arab administration before French Mandatory rule began in 1920). Saqqal was told by the judge that if he were to continue in this manner, he ought to return to Cairo. Za'im's government lasted until Za'im was killed in August 1949. Saqqal published Za'im's memoirs, Min Dhikrayat al-Za'im Husni al-Za'im (Recollections on Colonel Husni az-Za'im) in Cairo in 1951. Following Syria's secession from the United Arab Republic, Saqqal was one of the signatories of Syria's new National Charter.

He died on 27 March 1970 in his hometown, Aleppo.