Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Damascus for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during Syria’s 14-year conflict.
The ruling, delivered Tuesday by the Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus, marks the first death sentence against Assad or members of his inner circle since his family’s decades-long rule over Syria ended.
Assad was convicted alongside his younger brother, Maher al-Assad, and his maternal cousin, Atef Najib, in connection with abuses carried out during the government’s violent suppression of anti-government protests.
Court judge Fakhareddine al-Aryan said Assad had used state institutions and security agencies to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity during his rule.
“Bashar Assad used state agencies to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the judge said during a court session broadcast live on Syrian state television.
Assad sentenced while in Russia
Assad was not present in court to hear the verdict.
The former president and his brother fled Syria in December 2024 after rebel forces launched a lightning offensive that brought down his government and ended more than five decades of Assad family rule.
The two men subsequently received political asylum in Russia.
Syria’s new authorities have repeatedly called on Moscow to hand the former president and his brother over so they can face prosecution for alleged crimes committed during their years in power.
Because Assad remains outside Syria, the death sentence is currently in absentia and cannot immediately be carried out.
Cousin also sentenced to death
Atef Najib, Assad’s maternal cousin and a former Syrian army brigadier general, was also sentenced to death in the same case.
Najib served as head of the Political Security Branch in Daraa province in southern Syria in 2011, when the first major anti-government protests erupted.
He was present in court and appeared inside a prisoner’s cage wearing a prison uniform as the judge announced the sentence.
Najib was accused of overseeing a crackdown in Daraa that helped trigger the uprising against Assad’s government.
The unrest began after more than a dozen teenagers were arrested and allegedly tortured for writing anti-government graffiti on a school wall.
The incident sparked widespread demonstrations against Assad’s government and its security forces. The government responded with a violent crackdown, escalating the protests into an armed conflict that lasted 14 years.
Conflict left hundreds of thousands dead
The Syrian war resulted in the deaths of about half a million people and displaced millions more, creating one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.
Assad’s government was repeatedly accused by international investigators and human rights groups of carrying out widespread killings, arbitrary arrests, torture and other abuses against civilians and political opponents.
Maher al-Assad, who was a senior military commander and former head of Syria’s elite 4th Armored Division, has also faced accusations from opposition activists of involvement in killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking.
The division was also accused of operating detention facilities where prisoners were allegedly subjected to severe abuse.
First major prosecutions since Assad’s fall
Tuesday’s verdict represents a significant development in Syria’s efforts to hold senior figures from the former regime accountable.
For decades, the Assad family maintained tight control over Syria through the military, intelligence services and security apparatus. Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad, as president in 2000 and remained in power until his government collapsed in late 2024.
The sentencing of Assad and senior figures from his former government could pave the way for further prosecutions of officials accused of atrocities during the conflict.
Najib, who was sanctioned by the United States in April 2011, is among the highest-ranking former Assad officials to face trial in Syria since the fall of the regime.
Outside the courthouse in central Damascus, crowds gathered to hear the verdict as security was tightened around the proceedings.
The case is likely to become an important test of the new Syrian authorities’ commitment to transitional justice and accountability following years of war and repression.
SOURCE: CNN