World
Ex-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gets death sentence over war crimes
A Syrian court has sentenced former President Bashar al-Assad to death after finding him guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the country’s civil war.
Assad was sentenced in absentia on Tuesday, meaning he was not present in court during the proceedings.
His cousin, Atef Najib, was also handed the death penalty over his role in leading the crackdown in Daraa province. The crackdown helped trigger the uprising that later developed into Syria’s prolonged civil war.
The ruling marks a major legal development concerning alleged abuses committed during the conflict.
But unlike al-Assad, Najib stood inside a cage wearing a prisoner’s uniform as the judge read the sentence.
He was the former Syrian army brigadier general who led the political security branch in southern Syria’s Daraa province under Assad in 2011.
Najib, who was arrested in January last year, was convicted of crimes including murder, “the intentional killing of children under 15”, and “torture leading to death”.
The court said it handed down “the harshest punishment against him, which is the death penalty” for his “crimes against humanity”.
The ruling against al-Assad is the first under the transitional authorities who this year began trying figures from the former government, both in person and in absentia.
Al-Assad fled with his family to Moscow as Islamist-led forces closed in on Damascus in December 2024.
In the same year, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) named the ousted leader as corrupt person of the year.
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