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Reuters

A Syrian court sentenced ousted leader ⁠Bashar al-Assad ⁠to death on Tuesday ⁠after a trial in absentia, convicting him of crimes including killings, torture, and arbitrary arrest during the country’s nearly 14-year war.
It was the first conviction against ‌Assad, who was ousted in a rebel offensive in December 2024 that ended decades of his family’s iron-fisted rule over Syria and the brutal war that killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians.
Assad fled the capital Damascus as rebel fighters ⁠approached nearly two years ago, and is currently in Moscow.
In a ‌trial of former government officials on Tuesday, a judge handed down a death sentence to Assad ‌over the crimes of “premeditated and intentional murder of more ⁠than one ⁠person and of children, torture, arbitrary arrest and crimes against humanity”.

Atef Najib, a security ‌official under Assad, was also sentenced to death.
Assad, who was born in 1965, became ‌president in ‌2000 after his father Hafez died. He maintained the ‌family’s rule and the dominance of their Alawite sect in the ⁠Sunni Muslim-majority country and Syria’s status as an Iranian ally hostile ⁠to Israel and the US.
Shaped in its early years by the Iraq war and crisis in Lebanon, Assad’s rule ‌was defined by civil ‌war, which spiralled out of the 2011 Arab spring, when Syrians demanding democracy took to the streets, to be met with deadly force.


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Syrian court sentences ousted leader Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia

Former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad speaks in Damascus in 2023. Assad fled the capital Damascus as rebel fighters ⁠approached nearly two years ago, and is currently in Moscow. Photo: AFP

Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan sentences former Syrian president Assad in absentia to death on Tuesday, accusing him of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” after the outbreak of the country’s civil war in 2011. Photo: AFP

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The Syrian flag flies at the Umayyad Square in Damascus. After 14 years of civil war, the country’s infrastructure mostly lies in ruins. Photo: AFP

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World

Former Syrian president convicted of murder, torture and crimes against humanity after trial in Damascus following 2024 ousting


Former Syrian president convicted of murder, torture and crimes against humanity after trial in Damascus following 2024 ousting.


Iran

Syria

Russia

Bashar al-Assad

Syrian court sentences ousted leader Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Former Syrian president convicted of murder, torture and crimes against humanity after trial in Damascus following 2024 ousting

Former Syrian president convicted of murder, torture and crimes against humanity after trial in Damascus following 2024 ousting