Verdict marks first sentences against Assad inner circle since family rule ended
The Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus issued the sentences during a session aired live on state television. The case involved Syria’s 14-year conflict, which left about half a million people dead, according to the report.
Assad and Maher Assad were sentenced in absentia. The brothers fled to Russia after the government fell in December 2024 and received political asylum. Syria’s new rulers have asked Russia to hand them over.
Judge Fakhareddine al-Aryan said during the session that “Bashar Assad used state agencies to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Najib, Assad’s maternal cousin, was sentenced in the same case. The court convicted him of overseeing a “crackdown” in the southern province of Daraa that led to the uprising and the later conflict.
Najib stood inside a defendants’ cage wearing a prisoner’s uniform as the judge read the sentence. Security was tight, and a crowd gathered outside the courthouse in central Damascus to hear the verdict.
Najib is a former Syrian army brigadier general who headed the Political Security Branch in Daraa province under Assad in 2011. He was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in April 2011 and is one of the highest-ranking officials to be put on trial.
During Najib’s tenure, more than a dozen teenagers who had written anti-government graffiti on a school wall in Daraa were arrested and tortured. The case became a catalyst for mass protests against the policies of Assad’s security forces.
The source report said the protests were met by a government “crackdown” and developed into the 14-year conflict. A rebel offensive later led to Assad’s ouster.
Maher Assad was a former commander of the Syrian military’s 4th Armored Division. Syrian opposition activists accused the division of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking, as well as operating its own detention centers.