A Syrian court has sentenced former President Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher, and six other former government figures to death for crimes including murder, torture, abduction, unlawful deprivation of liberty, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
The Fourth Criminal Court in the capital Damascus delivered the judgment on Tuesday following a trial that began on April 26. Atef Najib, the former head of the Political Security branch in the key southwestern city of Daraa, was the only defendant in custody and present in court. The other seven were tried in absentia.
The court said the 396-page decision was based on witness testimony, statements from victims, official documents, medical reports, audio and visual evidence, and reports compiled by international organizations. A redacted version is expected to be released by the Justice Ministry after the identities of protected witnesses are removed.
The verdict is the first Syrian judgment holding Assad and members of his former leadership criminally responsible for the crackdown that began in Daraa in 2011 and the wider system of violence that followed.
Here are five questions about the defendants, the events behind the ruling, the legal consequences of the sentences, and what the case could mean for Syria's transitional justice process.
1) Who has been sentenced to death and what crimes were they convicted of?
The court imposed death sentences on eight defendants.
Bashar al-Assad, who served as president from 2000 until his government was overthrown in December 2024, was convicted of intentional murder, the killing of multiple people and children, killings accompanied by torture and brutality, repeated incitement to murder, torture resulting in death, and unlawful deprivation of liberty.
The court classified the offenses as domestic crimes, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. It found that Assad was not merely a president with reckless subordinates but the highest decision-maker who established the policies, mobilized state institutions to implement them, and protected those responsible from accountability.
Maher al-Assad, Bashar's brother and the commander of the army's powerful Fourth Armored Division, was sentenced alongside former Defense Minister and army chief Fahd Jassem al-Freij and four former security officials: Louay al-Ali, Qusay Mayhoub, Wafiq al-Nasser, and Talal al-Aysami.
Al-Ali headed a Military Security section in Daraa in 2011, while al-Nasser led Military Intelligence in Suwayda and the southern region and chaired its security committee. Mayhoub was a senior Air Force Intelligence official who was sent to Daraa during the initial crackdown, and al-Aysami headed the Interior Ministry's Special Missions Unit.
The six were convicted of intentional murder, repeated killings, killings accompanied by torture, incitement to murder, torture resulting in death, unlawful deprivation of liberty, and abduction. The court classified the offenses as crimes against humanity and war crimes. Al-Ali, Mayhoub, al-Nasser and al-Aysami were additionally convicted of killing minors and acts intended to provoke sectarian tension and civil strife.
Najib, a cousin of Bashar al-Assad who headed political security in Daraa starting in 2007, was convicted of murder, killings accompanied by torture, incitement to murder, torture resulting in death, deprivation of liberty, and repeated abductions.
Because the conduct attributed directly to Najib occurred in February to April 2011—before the court determined that the unrest had become a non-international armed conflict—it classified his actions as crimes against humanity and domestic crimes, rather than war crimes. He was also convicted of embezzling public money, money laundering, abuse of authority, fraud, and inciting sectarian tensions.
The proceedings against a ninth defendant, former security and military official Mohammad Ayman Ayoush, were dropped after the court confirmed his death.
2) Why are the 2011 Daraa events central to the case?
The events in Daraa form the starting point of both the prosecution and Syria's wider conflict.
In early 2011, security forces in Daraa detained a group of young students – none older than 15 – after they wrote anti-government slogans on walls. In court, the former detainees said they were beaten, given electric shocks, suspended in painful positions, and had their fingernails removed. The court said Najib personally interrogated some of them and insulted their families.
That March 18, residents demonstrated to demand the release of the students. Security forces opened fire, killing Mahmoud al-Jawabreh and Hossam Ayyash, according to the ruling.
Further shootings occurred during funeral processions, while protesters began an encampment at the Omari Mosque. Security forces stormed the mosque on March 22-23 using tear gas and live ammunition. The court said ambulances were fired on and wounded protesters were detained, causing some to die without treatment.
As residents from surrounding villages marched toward Daraa, the provincial security committee allegedly organized an operation to intercept them. The court found that Najib attended security committee meetings, requested reinforcements from Damascus, was present during operations, and issued orders to open fire.
The response transformed a local dispute over detained students into a wider protest movement. Demonstrations spread across Syria, while the government increasingly deployed the military and security services against protesters.
The unrest later developed into an armed conflict involving government forces, opposition factions, extremist groups, and foreign powers. The court used mid-July 2012 as the point at which the violence legally became a non-international armed conflict, allowing conduct after that date to be classified as war crimes as well as crimes against humanity.
3) How can Assad and other former officials be sentenced when they are outside Syria?
Syrian law allows defendants accused of serious crimes to be tried in absentia if they have been formally summoned but fail to appear.
The Damascus court relied on Article 322 and subsequent provisions of Syria's Criminal Procedural Code. It said the defendants had been notified in accordance with the required procedures and had failed to answer the summons.
A judgment delivered against a fugitive, however, does not operate in the same way as an ordinary final conviction. Under Syrian procedure, an in absentia ruling can be annulled if the defendant is arrested or voluntarily surrenders. The proceedings would then be reopened, allowing the defendant to attend, challenge the evidence, and present a defense.
Assad and the other fugitives would therefore not simply be taken for execution if they were returned to Syria. Their existing convictions would first be set aside and they would face new trials in their presence.
Until that happens, the judgment remains legally significant. The court kept the arrest warrants against the fugitives in force, ordered their circulation to the relevant authorities, converted provisional seizures of their property into enforceable seizures, and placed their assets under administration according to the rules governing the property of absent persons.
International standards do not prohibit every trial in absentia, but they require adequate notice, proof that the defendant knowingly chose not to appear, and access to a fresh trial if the person is later arrested.
Syrian human rights groups have said the public record has not fully explained how Assad and the other fugitives were notified. That question could become important if another country is asked to arrest or extradite them.
4) Can the death sentences actually be carried out?
There is no immediate prospect of carrying out the sentences against Bashar or Maher al-Assad as long as they remain outside Syrian custody.
Syria can circulate the arrest warrants internationally and seek an Interpol Red Notice. Such a notice asks police to locate and provisionally arrest a wanted person pending extradition, but it is not an international arrest warrant. Interpol cannot compel any member country to detain or surrender a suspect.
An extradition would depend on the law of the country where the defendant is found, any applicable bilateral agreement, and the political willingness of that government to cooperate.
A 2022 extradition agreement between Syria and Russia has been cited in discussions of the case, although Syrian legal experts say its application could be disputed and that Russia could invoke exceptions relating to politically sensitive cases. In practice, the decisive issue is Moscow's position.
Russia granted Bashar al-Assad and his family asylum after he fled Syria in December 2024. Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria's current president, has said Moscow takes a different position from Damascus on returning wanted former officials. Without a change in that position, Assad's extradition remains highly unlikely.
The death penalty could create an additional obstacle in countries that require assurances that an extradited person will not be executed.
Najib's position is different because he is already in Syrian custody. His judgment can be challenged before the country's Court of Cassation. Even if the sentence becomes final, Syrian law requires death sentences to be reviewed by the Special Pardon Committee and approved by the president before they can be carried out.
The same requirements would apply if one of the fugitives were eventually returned, retried in person, and again sentenced to death.
5) Are these verdicts the beginning of a broader reckoning with crimes committed during Syria's civil war?
The judgment could provide the legal foundation for further cases, but the number of former officials who may ultimately be prosecuted remains unknown.
The court expressly preserved the prosecution's authority to investigate other officials, participants, and accomplices not included in this case and to open separate proceedings whenever sufficient evidence becomes available. Other cases involving former government figures, including Wassim al-Assad, are already being heard by the Fourth Criminal Court.
Syria established a National Commission for Transitional Justice in May 2025, with responsibilities covering truth-seeking, accountability, reparations, preventing the recurrence of violations, and national reconciliation. A separate commission was created to investigate the fate of missing and forcibly disappeared people.
Authorities are also developing a transitional justice law intended to provide a broader framework for prosecutions, reparations, institutional reform, and victim participation. That legislation had not been adopted when the Assad and Najib trial began.
The process faces substantial legal and political challenges. Syrian criminal law does not separately and comprehensively codify genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, or command responsibility. In this case, the court used ordinary Syrian offenses such as murder, torture, and abduction while drawing on the Rome Statute and international law to characterize the wider crimes.
The Syria Justice and Accountability Centre, a Washington-based NGO which monitored Najib's trial, described the conviction as historic but said the proceedings were rushed, that some testimony did not sufficiently connect Najib to the charges, and that his lawyer failed to provide an adequate defense.
The Justice Ministry rejected those criticisms, saying the proceedings were done before a civilian criminal court, relied on evidence and judicial files, guaranteed defense and appeal rights, and were open to victims and monitors.
Whether the ruling becomes the start of a credible national reckoning will therefore depend on more than the severity of the sentences. It will require independent courts, properly prepared cases, effective defense rights, the protection and participation of victims, preservation of evidence, reparations, and accountability for serious crimes committed by all sides.
The verdicts create an official Syrian record placing Assad and senior members of his former government within a chain of criminal responsibility. Turning that symbolic judgment into a durable transitional justice process will be a much longer task.
