Former Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad has been sentenced to death in absentia by a Syrian court over crimes committed during the country’s long civil war. His younger brother, Maher Al-Assad, and their maternal cousin Atef Najib have also received death sentences in the same case. The ruling is the first major court action against members of the Assad family since their more than 50-year rule came to an end.
The court found Bashar Al-Assad responsible for crimes linked to Syria’s nearly 14-year conflict, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. The war, which began after protests in 2011, caused around half a million deaths and forced millions of Syrians to leave the country.
Atef Najib also gets a death sentence
Atef Najib, a former Syrian army brigadier general and Assad’s maternal cousin, was also sentenced to death. Najib had headed the Political Security Branch in Daraa in southern Syria in 2011.
The court said Najib played a leading role in the crackdown on protesters in Daraa, where the uprising against Assad’s government began. He was found guilty of acts including the intentional killing of children under the age of 15 and torture that resulted in death. The court described these acts as crimes against humanity and imposed the death penalty as the harshest punishment.
Unlike Bashar and Maher Al-Assad, who were not present in court, Najib had been detained in Syria and was tried in person. He became one of the highest-ranking former government officials to face trial after the fall of the Assad government.
Assad family fled to Russia
Bashar Al-Assad and Maher left Syria with family members and fled to Moscow after Islamist-led forces captured Damascus in December 2024. Russia later gave them asylum. Syria’s new authorities have sought to bring former Assad officials to justice, including those who left the country.
After the Assad government fell, Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former Al-Qaeda commander who had previously been labelled a terrorist by Washington, became the country’s new leader and formed a transitional government.
The Assad family ruled Syria for more than five decades, first under Hafez Al-Assad and later his son Bashar. The 2011 Arab Spring protests turned into a full-scale civil war after the government responded with a violent crackdown.
The conflict killed more than half a million people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Millions more fled to countries including Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and several European nations.
The Assad government was also accused of using sectarian tensions to maintain its hold on power. The legacy of that period continues to affect Syria, where violence involving minority communities has remained a major concern even as the new leadership promises a political system that represents all sections of society.
