Syria Sentences Bashar al-Assad to Death in Absentia Over War Crimes

Syria Sentences Bashar al-Assad to Death in Absentia Over War Crimes

The former president and his brother Maher were convicted over killings, torture and other crimes committed during Syria's 14-year conflict, but both remain in Russia after fleeing the country in December 2024.

A Syrian court has sentenced former President Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher al-Assad to death in absentia, marking the first conviction of the former Syrian leader since his government was overthrown in December 2024.

The court in Damascus convicted the brothers of crimes including premeditated murder, torture, arbitrary arrests and crimes against humanity committed during Syria's civil war. Former security official Atef Najib, Bashar al-Assad's cousin, was also sentenced to death after being tried in person.

The verdict is linked to the government's violent response to protests in Daraa in 2011, when security forces arrested and tortured children accused of writing anti-government messages on a wall. The crackdown helped trigger a wider uprising that developed into a war involving the Syrian government, opposition groups, Islamist militants and foreign powers.

Najib was the security official responsible for Daraa at the time and was later arrested by Syria's new authorities.

Bashar al-Assad had ruled Syria since 2000, when he succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad, who had governed the country for nearly three decades. His government survived the initial protests in 2011 and later regained control of much of Syria with military support from Russia and Iran.

That period came to an end in December 2024, when rebel forces launched a rapid offensive that captured Damascus and forced Assad to leave the country.

Russia subsequently granted Assad asylum, and he has remained there since his removal from power. Maher al-Assad, who commanded the Syrian Army's elite Fourth Armoured Division, also fled the country.

Their absence is now one of the central complications surrounding the verdict.

The death sentences were handed down without either brother appearing in court. Syria's transitional authorities have sought the return of former regime figures accused of serious crimes, but bringing Assad back from Russia would depend on Moscow agreeing to hand him over.

That makes Tuesday's ruling significant, but difficult to enforce.

The verdict is also the first major Syrian court conviction against Assad or members of his inner circle since the fall of his government. Human rights groups and families of victims have long sought accountability for killings, torture, arbitrary detention and other abuses committed during his rule.

The conflict that followed the 2011 uprising lasted nearly 14 years and killed around half a million people, according to estimates cited by the Associated Press. Millions more were displaced, while entire cities and communities were destroyed during the fighting.

The Daraa crackdown that forms part of the case has particular significance because of what followed.

What began as a relatively small protest movement eventually became an international conflict. Russia intervened militarily on Assad's side in 2015, while the United States and its allies became involved in operations against Islamic State militants. Turkey, Iran, Israel and other regional powers also became deeply involved in Syria's conflict.

The country was consequently divided for years between competing military and political forces.

Assad remained in power through most of that period, but his government's collapse in late 2024 brought a different question to the centre of Syrian politics: what should happen to the officials accused of running the system that had governed the country for decades?

The new authorities have begun pursuing former regime officials through the courts, while some senior figures have fled abroad.

Atef Najib's case was among the first major proceedings against a senior Assad-era official. His role in Daraa made him particularly significant to the investigation because the city became the starting point of the 2011 uprising.

The latest verdict expands that process to the former president himself and it comes as Syria's transitional authorities attempt to establish a new political and legal order after decades of Assad family rule.

That process faces its own scrutiny as Human Rights Watch has welcomed efforts to pursue accountability for abuses under the former government while opposing the use of the death penalty and calling for fair-trial standards to be respected.

For the families of Syrians who were killed, detained or disappeared during the conflict, the verdict represents a formal finding of responsibility by a Syrian court.

But it does not resolve the practical question of what happens to Assad as he remains in Russia and not in Syrian custody and unless Russia agrees to return him, the death sentence cannot be carried out.

The ruling therefore gives Syria's transitional government its first major judicial verdict against the former leadership, while leaving the most difficult part of the case unresolved: whether the former president can ever be brought back to the country he ruled for 24 years to face the punishment handed down against him.