A Damascus criminal court has convicted Bashar al-Assad of murder, torture and crimes against humanity, sentencing him to death in absentia along with seven other former security officials.
The landmark trial also convicted the exiled Syrian president and dictator of arbitrary detention and premeditated murder of multiple victims, including children, according to the SANA news agency.
From 2011 to 2021, different human rights groups have asserted that the Assad regime killed between 350,000 and 580,000 people.
The judge presiding over the case, Judge Al-Aryan, said that Assad was “the highest decision-maker” in the crimes committed and that he had used state institutions to facilitate their commission.
Assad is currently in exile in Russia after being given asylum there in 2024.
Assad’s family members sentenced
The former president’s brother, Maher al-Assad, was also among seven security officials sentenced to death. Maher, who is currently a fugitive, was convicted of premeditated murder and torture leading to death, the SANA news agency reported.
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A cousin of Assad, Atef Najib, who was the head of the Political Security Branch in Daraa province, also received the death sentence on similar charges of torture and murder.
The court said that Najib was involved in interrogating detainees after an outbreak of protests in the southwestern province, and subsequently carried out a “security campaign” against civilians in the area. The judge said: “The acts attributed to Atef Najib, according to investigations and witness statements, are crimes against humanity.”
More than a dozen teenagers were detained and tortured in the province for anti-regime graffiti.
The incident in Daraa sparked mass protests against the Assad regime, later leading to a civil war which lasted until 2024.
Collapse of Assad regime
Assad fled the Syrian capital Damascus to Moscow, Russia, in December 2024 after his government collapsed following an offensive by anti-regime forces led by Ahmed al-Sharaa.
During Syria’s almost 14-year civil war, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported that more than 12 million people were displaced — 6.9 million internally within Syria and 5.6 million who fled the country.
Whilst most human rights organisations estimate that the Assad regime killed between 350,000 and 580,000 people between 2011 and 2021, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says almost 657,000 were killed from the outbreak of the civil war to March 2025 — three months after the regime fell.
Crimes against humanity
Judge Fakhareddine al-Aryan said during a court session aired live on state television: “Bashar Assad used state agencies to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The Assad regime has been accused of using cruel and inhumane chemical weapons to crush dissent, including sarin, chlorine and mustard gas.
The most infamous example is the 2013 gas attack on Ghouta, near Damascus, which killed dozens of civilians.
There were also widespread reports of rape, beheadings and torture across Syria’s underground network of prisons.
Assad was born in 1965 and became president in 2000 after the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad. Prior to his political career, Assad worked as an orthodontist in the U.K.
Assad dominated the country and its state institutions with members of the Shia Alawite sect, despite them being a minority in a majority Sunni Muslim country. Syria was accordingly an Iranian-allied state throughout Assad’s rule.
