Syrian court sentences Bashar Assad to death in absentia for war crimes

By RAJA ABDULRAHIM

A court in Syria sentenced Bashar Assad, the country’s ousted president, and several other former government officials to death in absentia Tuesday after convicting them of committing murder, torture and crimes against humanity during the nearly 14-year civil war.

The verdicts marked the end of the first trial related to the war held in Syria since Assad was overthrown in December 2024, and they were met with celebrations inside and outside the courthouse in Damascus, the capital, and across the country.

Eight other people were sentenced, including Maher Assad, Assad’s younger brother, who led an elite army unit that was instrumental in attacking and killing opponents of the government throughout the war.

Atef Najib, a cousin of Bashar Assad and the former political security chief in the southern province of Daraa, was also convicted and sentenced to death. He was the only defendant present during the trial.

Najib has the right to appeal within 30 days, but the others do not because they refused to appear in court, said Radeef Mustafa, director of the accountability department at the National Commission for Transitional Justice, which oversees the process of prosecuting human rights abuses during the war.

After the Assad government fell, the former president and many of his family members and other officials, including Maher, fled to Russia. Russia granted Assad and his brother asylum. The Syrian government has called for him to be extradited to Syria, but Russian authorities are unlikely to return him.

Syria’s new interim government has sought to achieve some measure of justice for crimes committed by Assad and his authorities during the brutal civil war.

But Syrians have become increasingly resentful and impatient at the lack of accountability. Some have accused the interim government of not prioritizing that search for justice, given the pace of trials.

International legal experts, however, have cautioned that transitional justice takes time and cannot be rushed.

At the court in Damascus, after the verdict was announced, the families of some of the victims — some of whom carried photographs of their deceased loved ones — chanted “With our souls, with our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for the martyrs,” according to a video shared on social media.

Later, many more marched through the streets, continuing the celebrations, while others distributed Syrian sweets.

Najib was head of the security branch in Daraa when the revolt against Assad started in 2011. After teenagers painted graffiti on the side of a school there, suggesting that Assad would be the next dictator to fall in the Arab Spring protests that were sweeping the Middle East, they were arrested and tortured.

Protests erupted in response, and the government responded with deadly gunfire, sparking mass demonstrations across the country that eventually grew into an armed uprising.

Najib was responsible for those killings, as well as torture, arbitrary detentions and the deadly suppression of the protests, the Syrian court ruled.

Last year, the Syrian government formed by the rebels who ousted Assad established the National Commission for Transitional Justice. The head of the commission, Abdul Basit Abdul Latif, said Tuesday that the verdict against Najib was an important step toward justice.