Bashar al-Assad: Former Syrian President Sentenced to Death In Absentia for War Crimes
- A Syrian court convicted former president Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed
- The tribunal also sentenced their maternal cousin Atef Najib to death for directing the 2011 military crackdown in Daraa that sparked Syria's civil war
- Bashar al-Assad fled Syria in December 2024 and currently resides in Moscow, placing him beyond the reach of Syrian authorities
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A Syrian court has handed down death sentences to former president Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher al-Assad following a trial held in absentia, finding both men guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out during their 14-year grip on power.
The ruling was delivered on Tuesday and represents one of the most significant judicial actions taken against the former Syrian leadership since the regime's collapse.
Source: UGC
Assad brothers convicted in absentia
According to a report sighted on Graphic Online, Bashar al-Assad abandoned Damascus in December 2024 as opposition forces executed a swift offensive that effectively dissolved his administration.
He subsequently took refuge in Russia, where he remains to this day, residing outside the jurisdiction of Syrian courts and beyond any immediate prospect of enforcement.
His brother Maher, widely regarded as one of the regime's most feared military figures, was also convicted and sentenced to death under the same proceedings.
Their maternal cousin, Atef Najib, received an identical sentence but faces a markedly different situation: he is currently in custody within Syria, making him the only one of the three directly subject to the court's authority.
Daraa crackdown that ignited a civil war
Najib's conviction centres on his direction of the security response in the southern province of Daraa in 2011, where forces under his command detained and tortured teenage boys who had spray-painted anti-government graffiti on walls.
The episode drew widespread condemnation at the time and proved to be a turning point: the brutal treatment of those teenagers triggered mass protests that rapidly spread across the country, ultimately igniting the full-scale civil war that would consume Syria for over a decade until the regime's fall.
The judicial rulings mark a formal reckoning, however symbolic in the case of the exiled Assad brothers, for a period defined by documented atrocities, forced disappearances, and the systematic targeting of civilians.
Senegal court jails TikTokers
Earlier, YEN.com.gh reported that a Senegalese court had sentenced three TikTok influencers from Feenal Digital to prison over content deemed offensive towards President Faye.
Mandoumbe Diop, the most prominent of the three with more than half a million TikTok followers, had received the stiffest sentence of three months.
The TikTok influencers’ lawyer had argued in court that the videos were comedy content and did not warrant criminal prosecution.
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Source: YEN.com.gh
