AP —
A Syrian court on Tuesday sentenced ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his brother to death in absentia for crimes against humanity and war crimes during Syria’s 14-year conflict, which has killed about 500,000 people.
The verdict in Damascus’s 4th Criminal Court is the first against President Bashar al-Assad or members of his inner circle since the family’s 50-year power ended 20 months ago.
“Bashar al-Assad used state institutions to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Judge Fakhreddin al-Ayan said in court, broadcast live on state television.
Assad’s maternal cousin, Atef Najib, was also sentenced to death in the same case, and Najib was found guilty of overseeing a crackdown in the southern province of Daraa that led to an uprising and subsequent civil war.
Under tight security, Mr. Najib stood in a cage in prison uniform as the judge read the verdict. A large crowd gathered outside the court in central Damascus to hear the verdict.
After the regime’s collapse in December 2024, President Assad and his brother Maher defected to Russia and received political asylum. Syria’s new rulers have called on Russia to hand over Assad.
Najib was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in April 2011 and is one of the most senior officials to be detained and put on trial.
Najib is a former Syrian army brigadier general who served as head of the political and security branch in Daraa province in southern Syria in 2011 under the Assad regime.
During his term, more than a dozen teenagers who painted anti-government graffiti on the walls of schools in Daraa were arrested and tortured. The incident triggered large-scale protests against Assad’s security forces’ repressive policies.
The protests were brutally cracked down by the government, sparking a 14-year civil war that ended with a lightning rebel offensive that ousted President Bashar al-Assad.
Maher al-Assad is a former commander of the Syrian army’s 4th Armored Division, which Syrian opposition activists accuse of running its own detention centers and of murder, torture, extortion and drug trafficking.
