Damascus: A Syrian court docket sentenced ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad alongside along with his youthful brother to dying in absentia on Tuesday for crimes in opposition to humanity and conflict crimes throughout Syria’s 14-year battle that left about half one million individuals lifeless.
The sentences on the Fourth Felony Courtroom in Damascus are the primary in opposition to Assad or members of his interior circle because the Assad household’s 5 many years in energy got here to an finish 20 months in the past.
“Bashar Assad used state businesses to commit conflict crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity,” stated choose Fakhareddine al-Aryan throughout a court docket session that was aired reside on state TV.
Additionally sentenced to dying was Assad’s maternal cousin Atef Najib, who was convicted of overseeing a crackdown within the southern province of Daraa that led to the rebellion and later the civil conflict. Al-Aryan stated Najib can attraction.
Beneath tight safety, Najib stood inside a cage carrying a prisoner’s uniform because the choose learn the sentence. A crowd gathered outdoors the courthouse in central Damascus to listen to the decision.
“As we speak is the day of justice for all of the wounded, martyrs, detainees and Syrians who had been pressured to go away their nation,” stated legal professional Adnan al-Masalmeh who represented households of Najib’s victims. “As we speak marks a victory of proper in opposition to injustice, a victory of the Syrian individuals in opposition to the ousted regime.”
Assad and his brother Maher fled to Russia after the federal government’s fall in December 2024 and obtained political asylum. Syria’s new rulers have requested Russia handy the Assads over.
Najib, who was sanctioned by the US Division of the Treasury in April 2011, was later detained and is among the highest-ranking safety officers to be placed on trial.
Najib is a former military brigadier common who was head of the Political Safety Department in Syria’s southern Daraa province below Assad in 2011.
Throughout his tenure, greater than a dozen youngsters who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a faculty wall in Daraa had been arrested and tortured. The case turned a catalyst for mass protests in opposition to the repressive insurance policies of Assad’s safety forces.
The protests had been met by a brutal authorities crackdown that spiralled right into a 14-year civil conflict that ended with Assad’s ouster in a lightning insurgent offensive.
A few of Najib’s victims had been current on the courthouse, together with two who had been youngsters in 2011 and expressed their opinions to The Related Press.
“As we speak we reached a degree the place the blood was not wasted,” stated Mouawiya Sayasneh, about those that died within the crackdown. Fifteen years later, “there’s happiness that Atef Najib was sentenced to dying,” he stated.
One other man, Nayef Abazeid, who was detained on the age of 13 in 2011, expressed his satisfaction with the sentence, including that “our largest happiness shall be when Bashar Assad is executed.”
Maher Assad was a former commander of the Syrian army’s 4th Armored Division — which opposition activists have accused of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking, along with working its personal detention facilities.
“As we speak’s scenes outdoors the courthouse replicate 15 years of ache and a justice lengthy denied. Human Rights Watch opposes the dying penalty in all circumstances, together with this one,” stated Hiba Zayadin, Syria researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It’s merciless and irreversible, particularly when a good trial isn’t assured.”
Zayadin added that Najib has the appropriate to attraction, and that course of “wants to satisfy truthful trial requirements too.” Actual accountability for Assad-era crimes relies on Syria constructing a justice system that lasts, she stated.
