Noureddin Mohammed Ali al-Atassi

Atassi

Atassi, also spelled Atasi is the name of a prominent family of city Notables in Homs, Syria dating back to the 16th century AD. Members of the family lead the national movement against the French mandate...

(1930— 3 December 1992) (Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

: نور الدين بن محمد علي الأتاسي Nūr ad-Dīn Muṣṭafā al-'Atasī) was President of Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 from February 1966 to November 1970. Though a long-time ideologue of the powerful Baath Party

Baath Party

The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was a political party mixing Arab nationalist and Arab socialist interests, opposed to Western imperialism, and calling for the renaissance or resurrection and unification of the Arab world into a single state. Ba'ath is also spelled Ba'th or Baath and means...

 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

Salah Jadid

Salah Jadid was a Syrian general and political figure in the Baath Party, and the country's de facto leader from 1966 until 1970.- Rise to power :...

. He was a medical doctor by training, and in that capacity aided the Algeria

Algeria

Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...

n forces against the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 in the Algerian War of Independence

Algerian War of Independence

The Algerian War was a conflict between France and Algerian independence movements from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria's gaining its independence from France...

. In 1970 he was deposed along with Salah Jadid in a coup

Coup d'état

A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

 by Hafez al-Assad

Hafez al-Assad

Hafez ibn 'Ali ibn Sulayman al-Assad or more commonly Hafez al-Assad was the President of Syria for three decades. Assad's rule consolidated the power of the central government after decades of coups and counter-coups, such as Operation Wappen in 1957 conducted by the Eisenhower administration and...

, his defense minister. He was imprisoned without trial from that time until just before his death in 1992, when he was released and flown to France to receive medical treatment at the expense of the French government.