Bashar al-Assad Convicted of Crimes Against Humanity, Sentenced to Death

People celebrate in the streets of Syria after former dictator Bashar al-Assad, inset, is sentenced to death. Credit main image: Ghaith Alsayed/AP Photo

Nearly two years after Bashar al-Assad‘s brutal, bloody reign over Syria came to an end, a Syrian court convicted the disgraced ruler in absentia of crimes against humanity, sentencing him and his younger brother to death.

The Tuesday ruling against Assad, 60, was the first from a Syrian court against the dictator and his family, which ruled for five decades until a December 2024 rebel uprising.

The court proceedings, which lasted four months, were aired live on state television, the Associated Press reported.

“Bashar Assad used state agencies to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity,” said Judge Fakhareddine al-Aryan, according to the AP.

Assad’s younger brother, Maher al-Assad, a former Syrian military official, was also sentenced to death during the proceeding.

The two Assad brothers escaped to Russia when their heinous regime — which killed more than 200,000 civilians over 14 years, including more than 23,000 children, according to the Syrian Human Rights Network — finally collapsed.

The pair were given political asylum but Syria’s new leaders have asked Russia to return the two former leaders to the country.

Maher al-Assad, 58, once lead the regime’s Fourth Armoured Division — a group which cracked down on protesters and allegedly lead a drug trade that enriched his older brother, Reuters reported.

Atef Najib, a cousin of the brothers who served as a security official in the southern part of the country, was the only family member to be tried in person and was given the same sentence, according to reports.

Clad in a prison uniform, Najib, 66, was kept in a cage during the sentencing, according to the AP.

As word of the death sentence rippled through Syria, crowds gathered and celebrated — with many carrying photos of loved ones killed or taken by the Assad regime.

One critic slammed the dramatic sentence as “performative” and said it did little to actually bring the Assads to justice.

“There is a huge problem, which is that no one will hand over a criminal to a country that issues a death sentence. This will cut off the ​road to Assad, and many other criminals, ​being handed over to Syria,” Anwar ⁠al-Bunni, head of the Syrian Centre for Legal Studies and Research, told Reuters.

“This is performative justice, not transitional justice,” he added.

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