Bashar al Assad sentenced to death in absentia by Syrian court for war crimes

Former Syrian president Bashar al Assad has been sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity and war crimes, following a ruling by a court in the country.

Assad fled the capital Damascus, and flew to Moscow in December 2024 after his government fell following a lightning offensive by anti-regime forces.

Read more: How Syrian rebels overthrew Assad in just over a week

On Tuesday, the Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus sentenced the former president and his brother Maher Assad in absentia for the crimes carried out from 2011 to the end of the regime.

"Bashar Assad used state agencies to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity", judge Fakhareddine al Aryan said during a court session that was aired live on state TV.

Assad's maternal cousin Atef Najib - detained in Syria - was also sentenced to death for leading the 2011 crackdown in the southern province of Daraa, where more than a dozen teenagers were detained and tortured for anti-regime graffiti.

The incident in Daraa sparked a mass uprising against the Assad regime, and later the civil war, which lasted until the fall of the government.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), as of 2021, the civil war displaced 6.9 million inside Syria and led to 5.6 million fleeing the country.

In 2015, the group called the conflict the "world's worst humanitarian crisis".

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While total figures are disputed, the Assad regime is also accused of killing between 350,000 and 580,000 from 2011 to 2021, by the UN and Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, respectively.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, almost 657,000 were killed in the civil war from March 2011 to March 2025 - three months after the regime fell.

From 2011 onwards, Assad's rule saw widespread accusations of atrocities, including the use of chemical weapons such as sarin, chlorine, and mustard gas.

In 2013, a gas attack on rebel-held eastern Ghouta near Damascus killed scores of civilians.

There were also widespread reports of rapes, beheadings, and torture under Assad: Sky's chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay reported from Homs prison after the regime's fall, where many prisoners were murdered after forced confessions.

Assad was born in 1965, and became president in 2000 after his father Hafez died, having previously worked as an orthodontist in the UK.

He maintained the family's rule and the dominance of their Alawite sect in the Sunni Muslim-majority country and Syria's status as an Iranian ally, and was leader for 24 years.

Meanwhile, Maher Assad was a former commander of the Syrian military's 4th Armoured Division - which Syrian opposition activists have accused of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking.

Atef Najib is also a former Syrian army brigadier general who was head of the Political Security Branch in southern Syria's Daraa province under Assad in 2011.

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(c) Sky News 2026: Bashar al Assad sentenced to death in absentia by Syrian court for war crimes