A Syrian court has sentenced ousted former President Bashar al-Assad and his younger brother, Maher al-Assad, to death in absentia for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during Syria’s 14-year conflict.

The ruling was delivered on Tuesday by the Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus in connection with atrocities committed during the war, which left about half a million people dead and displaced millions of others.

Also sentenced to death in the same case was Assad’s maternal cousin, Atef Najib, who was present in court and stood inside a cage in a prisoner’s uniform as the judge read the sentence.

Najib, a former senior security official in Daraa, was found guilty of leading the 2011 crackdown in the southern province, an incident widely regarded as one of the triggers of the uprising that later developed into Syria’s civil war.

The court found Bashar al-Assad guilty of ordering the murder of civilians, including children, as well as torture and unlawful detention. The judge held that witnesses confirmed Assad was the ultimate authority behind the crimes and that he used state institutions to carry them out.

Najib was specifically convicted of crimes including murder, the intentional killing of children under 15 and torture leading to death.

The ruling marks a major development in Syria’s post-Assad accountability process, although analysts noted that the sentences against Bashar and Maher may be largely symbolic because both men are said to be in Russia and are unlikely to be handed over by Moscow. Najib, however, remains in Syrian custody.

The Assad regime has long been accused of widespread atrocities during the war, including the use of chemical weapons, barrel bombs on civilian areas, mass torture and executions in detention facilities. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed the use of sarin, while rights groups and investigators documented extensive abuses, including the Caesar photographs showing thousands of detainees who died in government custody.

Amnesty International also documented systematic mass hangings at Saydnaya military prison near Damascus, which it described as a “human slaughterhouse.”

Bashar and Maher al-Assad reportedly fled to Russia after opposition fighters led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa entered Damascus in December 2024, ending the Assad family’s grip on power. Russia had backed Assad militarily and diplomatically during the war.

The report also linked the Assad regime to extensive support from Iran and Hezbollah, including military coordination, foreign fighters and supply routes allegedly used for weapons movement during the conflict.

Maher al-Assad, who commanded the elite Fourth Armoured Division, was also linked by investigators and Western governments to Syria’s illicit captagon trade, which became a major source of revenue for networks around the Assad family during the war.

The Damascus judgment adds to previous international legal proceedings against Assad-era officials. A German court convicted former Syrian intelligence officer Anwar Raslan of crimes against humanity in 2022, while a Paris court sentenced three senior Syrian intelligence officials to life imprisonment in absentia in 2024 over torture and killings in Damascus.

The International Criminal Court has not indicted Assad because Syria is not a party to the Rome Statute and the UN Security Council never referred the case to the court, despite extensive documentation of war crimes and crimes against humanity by regime forces.

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