Atef Najib, the previous Syrian safety official extensively seen as the person who oversaw a regime of homicide, torture and compelled disappearances towards Syrians through the nation’s brutal 14-year civil struggle, has been sentenced to death by a court docket in Damascus.
On Tuesday, Najib was sentenced alongside ousted Syrian chief Bashar al-Assad and his youthful brother, Maher al-Assad, who additionally obtained the dying penalty in absentia for crimes together with premeditated homicide.
The Fourth Prison Courtroom discovered that crimes dedicated by al-Assad’s authorities in Deraa province in 2011 amounted to crimes towards humanity.
Not like al-Assad and members of his household who fled to Russia when the regime fell in December 2024, Najib has been in detention in Syria since January 2025. Throughout his trial, he was charged with at the very least 10 crimes, together with homicide, torture and duty for massacres, in addition to crimes towards humanity linked to the 2011 Deraa crackdown on protesters.
We unpack who Najib is, what he’s charged with and what we find out about his trial and verdict.
Who’s Atef Najib?
Najib, 66, is the primary cousin of former President Bashar al-Assad and the previous head of political safety in southern Syria’s Deraa province.
Al-Assad was overthrown in early December 2024, when a coalition of armed opposition teams seized Damascus in a lightning advance and toppled his authorities. Since his ousting, al-Assad has lived in exile in Moscow underneath tight Russian supervision, removed from any formal function in Syria’s new transitional authorities.
Al-Assad had been in energy since 2000 till he fled. He took over after his father, Hafez al-Assad, who had been in energy since 1970, died.
Within the early Nineteen Eighties, Najib joined the Navy Academy in Homs after graduating from faculty. After finishing his coaching on the academy, he grew to become the pinnacle of political safety in Deraa. The precise date he formally assumed his function just isn’t documented in public state archives.
He remained in his function main as much as and through the preliminary outbreak of the Syrian rebellion in March 2011. Accused of violently quashing this rebellion, the al-Assad regime formally eliminated him from his put up in April 2011.
Najib oversaw political safety in Deraa when youngsters who scrawled antigovernment graffiti on a college wall had been arrested and tortured. The case grew to become a catalyst for a broader rebellion, which in the end morphed right into a bloody civil struggle.
The Ministry of Inside’s common safety forces arrested Najib in January 2025 throughout a marketing campaign focusing on remnants of the previous authorities in Latakia province. Najib had fled the nation after al-Assad’s ousting, however then returned to Syria, Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto stated, reporting from Damascus on Tuesday.
Najib’s arrest was thought-about one of the crucial vital detentions of former safety officers as a result of he held a delicate safety place in Deraa originally of the Syrian rebellion.
Najib’s sentence was issued by the Fourth Prison Courtroom in Damascus on Tuesday, which oversaw the ultimate assessment of his case and judgement. Closing arguments and his ultimate assertion had already been heard within the eighth session. The proceedings started on April 26.
What has the court docket determined?
Najib was sentenced to dying, alongside al-Assad and his brother.
In accordance with the court docket ruling, Najib was concerned within the torture of a lot of detainees, together with of kids, and was answerable for the deaths of a lot of them throughout their detention.
This marks the primary resolution by a Syrian court docket towards a senior al-Assad‑period determine underneath the present transitional authorities.
“It is a historic second, right here in Syria. Atef Najib is the one one of many codefendants who is definitely standing trial right here bodily contained in the nation. The opposite codefendants are all being sentenced in absentia,” Al Jazeera’s Hitto stated.
What was Najib accused of?
He was accused of overseeing a violent crackdown on antigovernment protesters in Deraa through the 2011 rebellion, which led to the 14-year civil struggle.
Total, he was charged with at the very least 10 crimes, together with homicide, torture and duty for the 2011 bloodbath in Deraa, which the court docket dominated was against the law towards humanity.
In accordance with an Al Jazeera Mubasher report, 75 plaintiffs filed circumstances towards Najib and had been understood to have supplied testimony through the trial.
Why is that this vital?
This trial was a check case for Syria’s transitional justice system and for the brand new authorities’s skill to carry al-Assad regime officers to account for abuses underneath his rule.
The federal government of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has confronted criticism for delays in launching a promised transitional justice course of following the struggle, wherein an estimated half 1,000,000 individuals had been killed.
In accordance with a 2025 report by the Syrian Community for Human Rights, greater than 181,000 individuals had been forcibly disappeared or arbitrarily detained through the struggle, 90 % of them by the al-Assad regime.
“The authorized points that had been mentioned immediately are going to set the precedent for future authorized actions taken towards anybody that was concerned in these crimes,” Hitto stated.
The decision is due to this fact being seen by many as a check of how far al-Sharaa’s authorities will go to mete out justice for previous crimes.
“What’s at stake in these proceedings just isn’t confined to the query of whether or not Najib can be held to account for his actions … Reasonably, the true significance of this trial lies within the authorized basis of the judicial file that these proceedings will depart behind,” Fadel Abdulghany, the founder and head of the Syrian Community for Human Rights, wrote in an opinion piece for The New Arab final month.
Hitto reported that individuals had gathered across the court docket in Damascus when the decision was introduced, they usually had been “relieved that that is taking place on this approach”.
Syrians might be seen celebrating the verdicts within the streets outdoors.
“The nation has been attempting to reconcile greater than 5 a long time of dictatorship led by the al-Assad household during the last 18 months or so,” Hitto added.
