A Syrian court sentenced former President Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia on Tuesday, delivering the first criminal conviction against him since he was toppled and fled the country in December 2024, according to NPR and Al Jazeera.

Assad, his brother Maher al-Assad, and his cousin Atef Najib were all found guilty of premeditated murder, torture and crimes against humanity connected to the 14-year Syrian civil war, a conflict that killed roughly half a million people and displaced millions more. Najib, a former security chief widely blamed for helping ignite the 2011 uprising by ordering the torture of teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti in Daraa, was present in court and received his sentence in person. Bashar and Maher al-Assad were tried in absentia.

A Verdict Without a Defendant

Assad has lived in exile in Russia since his government collapsed, and Syria's new authorities have formally asked Moscow to extradite him — a request the Kremlin has so far ignored. Without custody of the defendant, the death sentence is unlikely to be carried out anytime soon, but Syrian officials and human rights groups have described the ruling as a milestone all the same, marking the country's first attempt to hold its former ruling family legally accountable through its own courts rather than an international tribunal.

THE FIRST CONVICTION AGAINST ASSAD SINCE HIS OUSTER

The trial drew on years of documentation compiled by war crimes investigators and defectors, including evidence of mass detentions, torture centers and chemical attacks carried out during the uprising and the war that followed. CNN's reporting notes the case is expected to be the first of many as Syria's transitional government works through a backlog of war-crimes files against former regime officials.

Reaction and What's Next

Families of victims who gathered outside the Damascus courthouse called the verdict overdue but welcome. Rights groups cautioned that a death sentence handed down without the defendant present raises due-process questions under international law, even as they acknowledged the extraordinary scale of the crimes alleged. Syria's foreign ministry said it would continue pressing Russia on extradition, while analysts say the case sets a legal template other war-crimes prosecutions against former Assad-era officials are likely to follow in the months ahead.