A Syrian court has sentenced former president Bashar al-Assad to death after convicting him over charges of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” during the country’s civil war.
Al-Assad was sentenced on Tuesday in absentia.
His cousin, Atef Najib, also received the death sentence for leading the crackdown in the southern province of Daraa that led to the uprising and subsequent civil war.
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 2025, 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.
