Fifteen years after the beginning of the Syrian uprising in 2011, a landmark verdict has been issued from Damascus – the same city from which Bashar Al Assad and his father, Hafez Al Assad, ruled Syria for decades with an iron fist.
Bashar and his brother Maher Al Assad, the former commander of the Syrian Army’s notorious 4th Armoured Division, have been sentenced to death in absentia for premeditated murder, torture, arbitrary detention and crimes against humanity.
The ruling also included Atef Najib, Bashar Al Assad’s cousin and former head of political security in the southern governorate of Daraa, whose actions helped ignite the uprising that would eventually spiral into a full-scale civil war.
In March 2011, Najib’s forces arrested 15 children in Daraa after they wrote anti-regime slogans on walls. The children were reportedly subjected to physical and psychological torture, including the removal of their fingernails.
Unlike Bashar and Maher, who are currently believed to reside in Russia after the fall of the Assad regime, Atef Najib was detained in Syria in early 2025 and was present during the trial.
Six other former Assad regime officials were also sentenced to death in absentia: Fahd Jassem Al Freij, Mohammad Ayman Ayoush, Louay Ali Al Ali, Qusay Ibrahim Mihoub, Wafiq Saleh Nasser and Talal Fares Al Aysami. The charges include premeditated murder, torture and other crimes committed during the conflict.
According to the judges, Bashar Al Assad was the highest decision-maker within the ousted regime and therefore bore responsibility for the use of state institutions and facilities in the commission of crimes against civilians. The implementation of the sentence, however, remains uncertain. Syria has sought Russia’s cooperation in extraditing Assad, but no agreement has been reached.
Wassim Al Assad, another cousin of the ousted president, has also been on trial before the Fourth Criminal Court since June, making him the first member of the Assad family to face proceedings while in custody.
Prosecutors accuse him of establishing and commanding armed factions during the early years of the civil war, allegedly operating under the authority of the former military’s elite Fourth Division. The groups are accused of receiving financial and logistical support from Wassim and carrying out acts of intimidation, violence and killings against civilians across Rif Dimashq governorate, including in Jaramana and Mleiha.
Perceived delays in trying, sentencing, and enforcing sentences on former Assad regime figures have recently caused several waves of unrest across the country, some of which have materialized in civilian-organized attacks on alleged pro-Assad neighbourhoods, resulting in the assault and reported killing of several Syrians.
The Syrian conflict took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and displaced an estimated 14 million. Its brutal nature – including mass enforced disappearances, systematic torture, sexual violence and indiscriminate bombardment – left behind a devastating chapter in Syrian history that will undoubtedly take much to overcome. Today’s verdict, however, might represent an early step towards doing so.
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