Damascus court sentences Bashar al-Assad to death for crimes against humanity
Syria's Fourth Criminal Court convicted the ousted president of premeditated murder and torture. He was tried in absentia and remains in Russia, so the sentence cannot be carried out.
A court in Damascus sentenced Bashar al-Assad to death on Tuesday, convicting him in absentia of premeditated murder, torture and crimes against humanity. It is the first capital sentence handed down against the ousted president or anyone in his inner circle since the regime collapsed in December 2024.
Assad was not there to hear it. He has lived in Russia since fleeing, and unless Moscow returns him the sentence stays on paper.
Nine death sentences, one defendant in the room
His brother Maher al-Assad and several former regime officials received the same penalty. The Fourth Criminal Court issued nine death sentences in total.
Only one of the men was physically present: Atef Najib, the former head of political security in Deraa province, arrested in January last year. Najib ran the crackdown on the Deraa protests in 2011, the spark that became the Syrian uprising. He heard the verdict standing in a cage in prison uniform, convicted of murder, the intentional killing of children under 15, and torture leading to death.
An early test for the transitional authorities
The trial is being read as a first measure of how far Syria’s new authorities will go to hold the old command structure to account for a 14-year war that killed roughly half a million people. Documenting those crimes is nowhere near finished — the UN mechanism set up to collect evidence on Syria is still assembling case files that could feed courts inside and outside the country.
Twenty months after the regime fell, Syria remains an open file in European diplomacy. In July, Emmanuel Macron’s trip to Damascus was interrupted by blasts that wounded 18 people, a reminder of how thin security in the capital still is.
Image: kremlin.ru / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
