A court in Syria sentenced Bashar al-Assad, the country’s ousted president, and several other former government officials to death in absentia on Tuesday after convicting them of committing murder, torture and crimes against humanity during a nearly 14-year civil war.
The verdicts marked the end of the first trial related to the war held in Syria since Mr. al-Assad was overthrown in December 2024, and they were met with celebrations inside and outside the courthouse in Damascus, the capital.
Eight other people were sentenced, including Maher al-Assad, Mr. al-Assad’s younger brother, who led an elite army unit that was instrumental in attacking and killing opponents of the regime throughout the war.
Atef Najib, a cousin of Mr. al-Assad and the former political security chief in the southern province of Daraa, was also convicted and sentenced to death. He was the only defendant present during the trial.
After the regime fell, Mr. al-Assad and many of his family members and officials, including Maher, fled to Russia, which granted him political asylum. The Syrian government has called for him to be extradited to Syria, but Russian authorities are unlikely to return him.
Syria’s new interim government has sought to achieve some measure of justice for crimes committed by Mr. Assad and his regime during the brutal civil war.
But Syrians have become increasingly resentful and impatient at the lack of accountability. Some have accused the interim government of not prioritizing that search for justice, given the pace of trials.
International legal experts, however, have cautioned that transitional justice takes time and cannot be rushed.
At the court in Damascus, after the verdict was announced, the families of some of the victims — some of whom carried photos of their deceased loved ones — chanted “With our souls, with our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for the martyrs.”
Mr. Najib was head of the security branch in Daraa when the revolt against Mr. Assad started in 2011. After teenagers painted graffiti on the side of a school there, suggesting that Mr. Assad would be the next dictator to fall in the Arab Spring protests that were sweeping the Middle East at the time, they were arrested and tortured.
When protests erupted in response, the government responded with deadly gunfire, sparking mass demonstrations across the country that eventually grew into an armed uprising.
Mr. Najib was responsible for those killings, as well as torture, arbitrary detentions, and the deadly suppression of the protests, the Syrian court ruled.
Last year, the Syrian government formed by the rebels who ousted Mr. al-Assad established a National Commission for Transitional Justice. The head of the commission, Abdul Basit Abdul Latif, said on Tuesday that the verdict against Mr. Najib was an important step toward justice.
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