Damascus court sentences ousted Assad to death in absentia for war crimes and crimes against humanity

The verdict

A Damascus criminal court sentenced former president Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia on 11 August 2026, convicting him of premeditated and intentional murder of more than one person and of children, torture, arbitrary arrest, and crimes against humanity. Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan delivered the ruling in a trial broadcast live on state television, stating that Assad had used state agencies to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was the first conviction against Assad since he was ousted in December 2024 by a coalition of Islamist rebels who closed in on Damascus after a lightning offensive. Assad fled to Moscow with his family and received political asylum in Russia. The court ruled that he should be pursued internationally.

Co-defendants and the only man in the dock

Six former military and security officials were sentenced to death in absentia alongside Assad. They included his brother Maher al-Assad, who commanded the army's elite Fourth Division and also fled the country; former defence minister Fahd al-Freij; and Louay al-Ali, who headed military intelligence in Daraa province in 2011. The only defendant to appear in person was Atef Najib, Assad's cousin and former head of political security in Daraa, who was arrested in January 2025. Najib was convicted of crimes against humanity including the intentional killing of children under 15 and torture leading to death. The Syrian National Commission for Transitional Justice called his conviction a milestone in the process of holding those responsible for the gravest crimes accountable.

Scenes outside the courthouse

Dozens of people gathered outside the Palace of Justice in central Damascus, holding photographs of disappeared or imprisoned relatives and erupting in celebration at the announcement of the verdict. Riot police were deployed outside the building during the session. Many in the crowd had travelled from Daraa, the southern city regarded as the cradle of the 2011 uprising, where Najib's actions in 2011, including the arrest and torture of teenagers who painted anti-government graffiti on a school wall, became a catalyst for mass protests.

Background of a 14-year war

Assad became president in 2000 after the death of his father Hafez al-Assad, maintaining the dominance of their Alawite sect in the Sunni Muslim-majority country. The civil war spiralled out of the 2011 Arab Spring, when Syrians demanding democracy took to the streets and were met with deadly force. Inquiries by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations concluded that government forces under Assad used the nerve agent sarin and chlorine as weapons in attacks on rebel-held areas. Following one poison gas attack in 2018, then-U.S. President Donald Trump called Assad an "animal." Syrian authorities denied using chemical weapons. More than half a million people were killed in the war, millions were displaced, and tens of thousands disappeared, many into the regime's prison system.

Assad's own words

In parliament in 2012, Assad compared his brutal suppression of the rebellion to a surgeon operating on a wound.

Do we say to him: 'your hands are covered in blood?' Or do we thank him for saving the patient?

His grip on power appeared to be slipping in the early years of the war as much of Syria fell to insurgents backed by Turkey, Gulf Arab states and the United States. Shi'ite militias backed by Iran arrived in 2012 to fight on his side, and Russia's air force joined in 2015, allowing Assad to regain ground before the final collapse in December 2024. Syria began trial proceedings against Assad and other officials in April 2026. The current president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, took power after the rebel offensive and is supported by Turkey.