Syria’s former president Bashar al-Assad. File
| Picture Credit score: Reuters
A Syrian court docket sentenced ousted chief Bashar al-Assad to demise on Tuesday (August 11, 2026) after a trial in absentia, convicting him of crimes together with killings, torture, and arbitrary arrest through the nation’s almost 14-year struggle.
It was the primary conviction towards Assad, who was ousted in a rebel offensive in December 2024 that ended a long time of his household’s iron-fisted rule over Syria, and the brutal struggle that killed a whole bunch of hundreds of Syrians.
Assad fled the capital Damascus as insurgent fighters approached almost two years in the past, and is at present in Moscow.
In a trial of former government officials on Tuesday, a choose handed down a demise sentence to Assad over the crimes of “premeditated and intentional homicide of extra than one particular person and of youngsters, torture, arbitrary arrest and crimes towards humanity”.
Atef Najib, a safety official below Assad, was additionally sentenced to demise.
Assad, who was born in 1965, turned president in 2000 after his father Hafez died. He maintained the household’s rule and the dominance of their Alawite sect within the Sunni Muslim-majority nation and Syria’s standing as an Iranian ally hostile to Israel and the U.S.
Formed in its early years by the Iraq struggle and disaster in Lebanon, Assad’s rule was outlined by civil struggle, which spiralled out of the 2011 Arab Spring, when Syrians demanding democracy took to the streets, to be met with lethal pressure.
Revealed – August 11, 2026 03:29 pm IST
