The court hearing in the murder of Syria's nationalist leader Abdul Rahman Shahbandar in 1940. The court was held in Parliament, the judges are seated in the section reserved for the Speaker, and the defendants are surrounded by officers, in the section reserved for the press. The accused were convicted murder and executed in Damascus. This was the first and last time that the Syrian Chamber was transformed from a political body into a judicial one. Originally the trial was supposed to take place at the Grand Masonic Lodge of Damascus, but because of space reasons, it was moved to the Syrian Parliament.