A Damascus court sentenced Syria's former president Bashar al-Assad to death on Tuesday, marking the first major war crimes prosecution under the transitional authorities that seized power after his December 2024 flight to Moscow. The court convicted Assad of premeditated murder of multiple people, including children, as well as torture, arbitrary detention and crimes against humanity. His brother Maher and former security official Atef Najib also received death sentences.
Najib, a cousin of Assad, was arrested in January last year and stood trial in person. He was convicted of crimes including murder, "the intentional killing of children under 15," and "torture leading to death." Bashar and Maher were tried in absentia. The interim government began prosecuting figures from the former government this year, pursuing both those in custody and those who fled.
The Assad Legacy
Assad became president in 2000 after the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad. He maintained the family's rule and the dominance of the Alawite sect in the predominantly Sunni Muslim country, while keeping Syria aligned with Iran and hostile towards Israel and the United States. That alignment would prove consequential when protests erupted 15 years ago.
In March 2011, government forces led by Assad violently suppressed protests that emerged during the Arab Spring, prompting an armed uprising. While Russia and Iran backed Assad, the US, Turkey and other countries supported different factions at various stages. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the subsequent years as the conflict devastated civilian infrastructure and displaced millions. The 14-year civil war left Syria facing a profound political, economic and humanitarian crisis.
A UN investigative mechanism said evidence showed a systematic pattern of torture, sexual violence and enforced disappearances across more than 100 government detention facilities. Human rights abuses were reported throughout the conflict, with the Assad government accused of widespread arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and attacks on civilians. Rights concerns have continued during Syria's political transition, and UN experts have reported allegations of summary executions, forced displacement and other abuses against civilians.
The New Syria and Foreign Troop Withdrawals
After Sharaa's Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, seized Damascus on 8 December 2024, ousting Assad, Sharaa became Syria's interim president. Shortly after celebrating his victory, Sharaa began embracing world leaders and appeared in western media outlets, where he spoke of Syria's "diversity as a strength" and of "unifying the country." He also promised to pursue former government personnel and loyalists implicated in war crimes, trimmed his beard and replaced his turban and thobe with a suit and tie.
In April, the last remaining US troops in Syria left their base in Hasakah, ending a 10-year presence in the country. The Syrian military entered the last base previously under American control, known as Qasrak, which included an airstrip. The Syrian foreign ministry said it welcomed "the completed handover of military sites where United States forces were previously present in Syria to the Syrian government." Earlier this year, the US helped facilitate an agreement between the longtime US partner Syrian Democratic Forces and Damascus, under which the Syrian government agreed to take the lead in combating militant groups such as the Islamic State group. The SDF also agreed to hand over control of large swathes of territory, including Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, to Damascus.
On Monday, Syria also reached a memorandum of understanding with Russia to scale back Moscow's military presence on Syria's Mediterranean coast, ending 18 months of negotiations over the future of the Hmeimim airbase and Tartus naval facility. US forces also withdrew from two major American bases in Syria: southern al-Tanf and al-Shaddadi in the northeast. American troops had been in Syria since 2015. Washington, which backs President Ahmed al-Sharaa's new government, previously had around 1,000 US troops in Syria.
Sectarian Tensions and Sustainability Questions
In April, during a visit to London, Sharaa said Damascus would stay out of the Israeli-US war on Iran unless his country comes under attack. Syria's transitional administration has initiated economic reforms, including public-sector employee reductions, tax system reforms and the reopening of border crossings, but some have questioned the sustainability of Sharaa's transformation and pointed out that he hasn't, to date, publicly apologised for past actions.
Meanwhile, tensions between the new government and the Alawite community have been high. Last year, armed attacks on security forces by suspected Assad loyalists in the coastal Alawite heartland of Latakia spiralled into brutal sectarian bloodshed. At least 1,500 Alawites were killed in the subsequent violence, with a Reuters investigation tracing much of the violence back to security officials in Damascus.
Why This Matters:
The death sentence against Assad represents a symbolic break with Syria's brutal past, but the transitional government's ability to deliver justice while maintaining stability remains uncertain. The withdrawal of US and Russian forces removes foreign military actors who helped shape the conflict's outcome, leaving Syria's new leadership to navigate between competing regional powers without external guarantees. Iran's longstanding influence through Assad's government has been disrupted, but Tehran's proxies remain active across the region. The sectarian violence that killed 1,500 Alawites last year demonstrates the fragility of Syria's internal order — Sharaa's government must prosecute war criminals while preventing revenge killings that could reignite the civil war. The sustainability of his transformation from Islamist militant to suited statesman will determine whether Syria moves toward reconciliation or descends into new cycles of violence. For neighboring states and Western powers, the question isn't whether Assad deserved his sentence — it's whether the government that issued it can build a functioning state from the wreckage of a 14-year war.