A Syrian court has delivered a verdict finding former president Bashar al-Assad guilty and sentencing him to death in absentia. The judicial panel determined that Assad was responsible for serious international crimes committed during almost 14 years of war in Syria. The charges include war crimes, crimes against humanity, murder, torture, and the commission of arbitrary arrests.
In the same legal proceedings, the death penalty was also handed down to Bashar’s younger brother, Maher al-Assad. Before the regime’s fall, Maher served as commander of the Syrian army’s Fourth Armoured Division. Both brothers left Syria after a coalition of rebel groups toppled Bashar al-Assad’s rule in December 2024. They are currently in Russia.
Assad’s maternal cousin, Atef Najib, a former senior political security official, was also sentenced to death. Unlike the Assad brothers, Najib was present in the courtroom in Damascus during the sentencing hearing. Witnesses saw him dressed in a prison uniform, listening to the verdict from behind bars.
Najib is accused of brutally suppressing the first protests that erupted in 2011. At the time, he headed a branch of political security in the southern province of Daraa, which is considered the cradle of the uprising against the then-authorities. The allegations are particularly severe regarding the arrest, abuse, and torture of minors who were painting anti-regime graffiti.
