Damascus Court Sentences Assad to Death, Najib in Cage

Syria’s Fourth Criminal Court, sitting in the Justice Palace in Damascus, sentenced former president Bashar al-Assad to death on Tuesday, August 11, 2026. Assad was tried in absentia, since he has been living in Moscow since December 2024, which makes this first verdict against the toppled regime’s top leadership also a verdict against a man beyond the reach of the court that issued it. The Balkans know this kind of question from their own experience with trials of former heads of state, which is why the ruling from Damascus does not read as a distant story.

The court found Assad guilty of premeditated murder. Also sentenced to death in absentia was Maher al-Assad, the former president’s younger brother and former commander of the Syrian army’s Fourth Armored Division. The brothers left Damascus for Moscow in December 2024, after rebel forces entered the capital.

Atef Najib heard his sentence in person, standing in a cage in the courtroom, wearing a prison uniform under heavy guard. The brigadier general and former head of the Political Security Department in Deraa province was sentenced to death for premeditated murder and torture. The court found that the crimes committed by Assad’s government in Deraa in 2011 amounted to crimes against humanity.

Why it all comes back to Deraa

In 2011, Najib oversaw security in Deraa province when teenagers who had spray-painted anti-government graffiti on a school wall were arrested and tortured. That arrest is considered the spark that set off the uprising, which grew into a war lasting 14 years and claiming roughly half a million lives. The same wave of repression is tied to the case of thirteen-year-old Hamza al-Khatib, whose mutilated body was returned to his family weeks after his arrest that same year.

General Security forces under the Interior Ministry arrested Najib in January 2025 in Latakia province, during an operation against remnants of the former government. His case has been under investigation since February 2025, with 75 victims filing complaints, and six hearings were held before the verdict. The first substantive hearing took place on May 10, 2026, when he was charged with at least ten criminal offenses, including murder, torture, and responsibility for massacres.

Yousef Sweidan, a survivor of detention in Deraa who was tortured, told the court: “Even execution is too light a punishment for the crimes he committed.”

What the verdict changes while Assad is in Moscow

The sentence against Assad cannot be carried out while he remains in Russia, so the ruling’s impact is above all evidentiary and political. For the first time, responsibility has been assigned to the regime’s own top leadership, not only to the officers who carried out orders in the provinces. Syria’s new government is at the same time reshaping its relations with Moscow, something we reported on when Damascus took over the civilian part of Russia’s military bases in Syria. Russia thus remains both host to the condemned former president and a counterpart to the government that convicted him.

Who faces the same court next

The Fourth Criminal Court is also hearing cases against Wassim al-Assad, a relative of the former president, and Ahmad Hassoun, the former grand mufti, with three hearings held in each case so far. A verdict against Wassim al-Assad is scheduled for August 18, and against Hassoun for August 24, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty in both cases as well. A team of five lawyers led by Noha al-Masri represents the victims in those proceedings.

The in-absentia trial of Bashar and Maher al-Assad opened on April 25, 2026, and the verdict came less than four months later. The next date on the Justice Palace calendar is August 18, when the same court hands down a sentence against the former president’s relative.