DAMASCUS: A Syrian court docket sentenced ousted chief Bashar al-Assad to demise on Tuesday (Aug 11) after a trial in absentia, convicting him of crimes together with killings, torture and arbitrary arrest through the nation’s almost 14-year conflict.
It was the primary conviction towards Assad, who was ousted in a insurgent offensive in December 2024 that ended many years of his household’s iron-fisted rule over Syria, and the brutal conflict that killed a whole lot of 1000’s of Syrians.
Assad fled the capital Damascus as insurgent fighters approached almost two years in the past, and is at present in Moscow.
In a trial of former authorities officers on Tuesday, a decide handed down a demise sentence to Assad over the crimes of “premeditated and intentional homicide of multiple particular person and of kids, torture, arbitrary arrest and crimes towards humanity”.
Atef Najib, a safety official beneath Assad, was additionally sentenced to demise.
Assad, who was born in 1965, turned president in 2000 after his father Hafez died. He maintained the household’s rule and the dominance of their Alawite sect within the Sunni Muslim-majority nation and Syria’s standing as an Iranian ally hostile to Israel and the US.
Formed in its early years by the Iraq conflict and disaster in Lebanon, Assad’s rule was outlined by civil conflict, which spiralled out of the 2011 Arab Spring, when Syrians demanding democracy took to the streets, to be met with lethal drive.
