Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sentenced to death

Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and former head of the political security service in the southern province of Daraa, Atef Najib, have been sentenced to death for crimes committed during the countryʼs civil war.

This is reported by the Syrian agencies SANA and Al Jazeera.

A criminal court in Damascus found Assad guilty of premeditated murder and Najib guilty of premeditated murder and torture.

The case concerns crimes committed by the Assad government in Daraa province in 2011. The suppression of protests in the region in 2011 later escalated into a decade of civil war. The court found the Assad regime’s actions to be crimes against humanity.

Assad was tried in absentia — after his regime was overthrown in 2024, he fled to Russia. The countryʼs new government sought his extradition, but Russia refused.

• On December 8, 2024, the Syrian opposition entered the Syrian capital, Damascus, and overthrew the regime of President Bashar Assad, who had been in power for 24 years. Assad fled to Moscow.
• The Syrian rebels formed a transitional government, led by Muhammad Bashir (Muhammad al-Julani), who led the "Salvation Government" — a political structure created in 2017 in territories controlled by the Syrian opposition, primarily in the province of Idlib.

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