NewzA Syrian court sentenced ousted leader Bashar al-Assad to death on Tuesday after a trial in absentia, convicting him of crimes including killings, torture, and arbitrary arrest during the country's nearly 14-year war. The 60-year-old, who was president of Syria for 24 years until 2024 before fleeing to Moscow, was found guilty of crimes including killings, torture, and arbitrary arrest. Syria's Bashar al-Assad fled the capital Damascus as rebel fighters approached nearly two years ago, and is currently in Moscow.
Court sentences Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia in landmark trial A Damascus court sentenced Syria's former president Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher and former security official Atef Najib to death on Tuesday on charges of murder, torture and incitement to murder. The court convicted Bashar of premeditated murder of multiple people, including children, as well as torture, arbitrary detention and crimes against humanity. Najib was tried in person, while Bashar and Maher were tried in absentia.
Former security official Najib, a cousin of Assad, was arrested in January last year and was convicted of crimes including murder, "the intentional killing of children under 15", and "torture leading to death". The ruling against Assad, who fled with his family to Moscow as armed opposition forces closed in on Damascus in December 2024, is the first issued under the transitional authorities. Assad fled Damascus during the rebel offensive in December 2024 and is currently in Moscow; Atef Najib, a security official under Assad, was also sentenced to death
It was the first Syrian conviction against Assad, who was ousted in a rebel offensive in December 2024 that ended decades of his family's iron-fisted rule over Syria, and the brutal war that killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians. Syrians gathered around the court in Damascus, chanting, clapping and waving the Syrian flag as news of the sentences spread. Assad fled the capital Damascus as rebel fighters closed in nearly two years ago, and is currently in Russia, where he and his family were granted asylum on humanitarian grounds.
Security official tried in person In a trial of former government officials on Tuesday, a judge handed down a death sentence to the former president over the crimes of "premeditated and intentional murder of more than one person and of children, torture, arbitrary arrest and crimes against humanity". The judge issued the same sentence in absentia to Assad's brother Maher, who headed the fearsome Fourth Armoured Division, which was responsible for crackdowns on protests, recapturing Syrian territory on behalf of Assad and was accused of spearheading the production and trade of drugs to enrich Assad. Read: Trump removes Syria from terror list A death sentence was also handed down to Atef Najib, an Assad-era security official in the southern province of Deraa, where the first protests against Assad erupted in 2011.
Najib, a cousin of the Assads, was detained by Syrian security forces in early 2025 and was the only accused to be tried in person. Celebrations and some scepticism In Deraa, crowds also gathered to celebrate and carried pictures of people arrested or killed during the war, including ones of Hamza al-Khatib, a 13-year-old boy who activists said was arrested by Syrian security forces, then tortured and killed. Noha al-Masri, a prosecutor present at Tuesday's sentencing, lost her own brother in a crackdown on a Deraa protest in 2011.
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