Damascus:
Syria’s ex-president Bashar Al-Assad has been sentenced to loss of life in absentia by a Syrian court docket following a conviction over fees associated to “struggle crimes” and “crimes in opposition to humanity” throughout Syria’s 14-year battle that left about half one million folks useless. His youthful brother Maher Al-Assad, a former chief within the Syrian army, has additionally been awarded the loss of life sentence.
Additionally sentenced to loss of life in the identical case was Assad’s maternal cousin Atef Najib– a former Syrian military brigadier common who was head of the Political Safety Department in southern Syria’s Daraa province underneath Assad in 2011– for main the crackdown within the southern province of Daraa that led to the rebellion and later the civil struggle.
The court docket dominated that Najib carried out “the intentional killing of youngsters underneath 15” and “torture resulting in loss of life.” The acts attributed to him are “crimes in opposition to humanity,” the court docket mentioned because it handed down “the harshest punishment in opposition to him, which is the loss of life penalty.”
The Tyrannical Rule
The previous ruler fled Syria along with his members of the family, together with his brother, to Moscow as Islamist-led forces closed in on Damascus in December 2024. After the Asaad empire toppled, Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former Al-Qaeda commander as soon as branded a terrorist by Washington, fashioned the brand new authorities in Syria.
Najib, who stayed behind, was later detained and have become one of many highest-ranking officers to be placed on trial.
The ruling in opposition to Assad and his members of the family is the primary underneath the transitional authorities who this 12 months started attempting figures from the previous authorities, each in individual and in absentia.
For over 50 years, Syria was dominated by Hafez Assad after which his son, Bashar Al-Assad. In the course of the Arab Spring, rebel broke out in opposition to their tyrannical rule in 2011 throughout the nation of 23 million, igniting a brutal 13-year civil struggle that killed greater than half one million folks, in line with the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights.
Tens of millions extra fled to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Europe. The Assad dynasty manipulated sectarian tensions to remain in energy, a legacy driving renewed violence in Syria in opposition to minority teams regardless of guarantees that the nation’s new leaders will carve out a political future for Syria that features and represents all its communities.
