ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - A Syrian court on Tuesday handed death sentences to toppled President Bashar al-Assad and two of his cousins for crimes against humanity, state media reported. Assad has been charged in absentia as he has fled to Russia.

Throughout the country’s 14-year-long civil war, the Assad regime was responsible for myriad war crimes and serious violations of international law and human rights, including the use of chemical weapons, torture, enforced disappearances, sexual violence, and collective punishment.

“The criminal Bashar al-Assad is an indirect perpetrator in all crimes committed against the Syrian people, even if he did not personally commit them,” the judge said during the session.

“The court unanimously decided to convict the fugitive defendant Bashar al-Assad of murder and incitement to murder, and sentenced him to death,” he added.

Others sentenced to death during the same session were Bashar’s cousins, Maher al-Assad and Atef Najib, as well as several other officials of the former regime for premeditated murder and torture leading to death.

Bashar and Maher al-Assad, who was a senior military commander, were sentenced in absentia as they fled to Russia during the offensive, spearheaded by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), that toppled the former regime in December 2024. HTS was led by now-president Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Najib – convicted of murder, torture, and incitement to murder – was head of the Political Security Branch in the Daraa area and the first Assad-era official to be prosecuted by the new authorities.

“The verdict against the defendant Atef Najib is subject to appeal,” the judge said. 

Another one of Bashar’s cousins, Wassim al-Assad, is also on trial for drug trafficking, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, but the court has yet to sentence him.

Wassim’s indictment during his first trial in June included involvement in military operations that targeted civilians, including one in eastern Ghouta where a large number of civilians were killed, and another murder in Rif Dimashq’s Jaramana.

In January 2013, a gas station in Eastern Ghouta’s town of al-Mleiha was bombed and later attacked by militias, killing around 70 civilians, according to a report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, with Assad having been accused of involvement in the killings.

Since the collapse of the Baath regime in Syria in December 2024, a large number of human rights violations committed by the collapsed regime have come to light, including the mistreatment of political and dissent detainees in high security prisons, and the discovery of mass graves across the country.

The most infamous case is the Saydnaya Prison, known as a “human slaughterhouse,” where daily executions took place. Survivors describe enduring torture, humiliation, starvation and medical neglect in their testimonies.

More than 60,000 people are believed to have died under torture by the former regime, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

Following the fall of the regime in December 2024, the Kremlin officially announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally granted asylum to Bashar al-Assad and his family. Russian state media reported that the asylum was granted on “humanitarian” grounds.

In his first message since fleeing to Russia in mid December 2024, Bashar al-Assad said that he did not plan on leaving the country, which he claimed has now fallen “into the hands of terrorism.”