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

Nearly two years after fleeing Damascus as rebel forces closed in, Bashar al-Assad has been formally condemned by a Syrian court. On Tuesday, the Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus sentenced the former president to death in absentia for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Syria’s 14-year civil war.

What the Court Ruled

The sentence was handed down alongside convictions for several other members of Assad’s inner circle. His younger brother, Maher al-Assad — who also fled to Russia in December 2024 — was sentenced to death in absentia on the same charges of premeditated murder and torture. Assad’s maternal cousin, Atef Najib, received the same sentence for leading the 2011 security crackdown in the southern province of Daraa, the crackdown widely seen as the spark that ignited the uprising and, eventually, the wider civil war.

Unlike Assad and his brother, Najib was physically present. He appeared in court wearing a prisoner’s uniform, standing inside a defendant’s cage as the ruling was read amid tight security. Presiding judge Fakhareddine al-Aryan addressed the court directly, stating that Assad had used the machinery of the state to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity, and that witness testimony established the former leader’s role as the “highest decision-maker” behind the violence.

The court also handed down death sentences in absentia to other former officials who fled the country, including Assad’s former defense minister, Fahd al-Freij, and a former military intelligence chief who operated in Daraa during the 2011 crackdown.

The First Verdict of Its Kind

These are the first sentences issued against Assad or any member of his inner circle since his family’s five-decade grip on power collapsed roughly 20 months ago, when opposition fighters led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa marched into Damascus. The ruling marks the opening chapter of a broader effort by Syria’s transitional authorities, who began putting former regime figures on trial this year, both in person and in absentia, as part of a wider reckoning with the atrocities of the war.

The war itself left an enormous toll: roughly half a million people killed and millions more displaced over nearly a decade and a half of fighting.

Outside the courthouse in central Damascus, crowds gathered to hear the verdict, some holding photographs of relatives killed or tortured during the conflict. For many Syrians, the ruling carries deep symbolic weight after years of watching accountability efforts unfold mostly in foreign courtrooms — Germany, France, and elsewhere — rather than in Syria itself.

Assad’s Life in Russia

Assad and Maher fled to Moscow as the regime fell in December 2024 and were granted political asylum there. Syria’s new government has formally asked Russia to hand the brothers over, though Moscow has given no indication it intends to comply. Russia and Syria’s former ruling family maintained close military and political ties throughout the war, and Russian forces were instrumental in propping up Assad’s government for years before its collapse.

Because Russia has no extradition arrangement with Syria and has historically shown little willingness to surrender high-profile exiles, the death sentence is, for now, unlikely to be carried out. It joins a growing body of largely symbolic rulings against Assad-era officials issued by courts outside Syria in recent years, including cases in Germany and France targeting lower-ranking figures for their roles in torture and killings.

Najib, unlike Assad and his brother, does have the right to appeal his sentence, according to the judge.

Why It Matters

Whether or not Assad ever faces the sentence in person, Tuesday’s ruling is being described by Syrians and observers alike as a historic moment — the first time a Syrian court, rather than a foreign one, has held the former head of state legally accountable for the atrocities of the civil war. For a country still working through the trauma of nearly a decade and a half of conflict, it represents a formal, public acknowledgment of responsibility at the highest level of the former government, even if the man convicted remains thousands of miles away and out of reach.

This is a developing story and details may be updated as more information becomes available.