Syrian court sentences cousin of ousted Syrian ruler al-Assad to death

A criminal court in Damascus on Tuesday sentenced Waseem al-Assad, a cousin of ousted Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, to death after convicting him of premeditated murder and acts of torture amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The court’s president, Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Arian, said the investigation had established that Waseem al-Assad was involved in forming armed groups that carried out massacres in civilian areas of Eastern Ghouta, raided businesses, and kidnapped and killed Syrian civilians.

The court also ordered the confiscation of all his assets, with the proceeds to be transferred to the state treasury.

Waseem al-Assad, cousin of Bashar al-Assad, was sentenced to death after being convicted of crimes against humanity in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta region.

The ruling came just one week after the court sentenced Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher al-Assad, and other senior officials of the former regime to death in absentia on August 11.

Also tried in the case was Atef Najib, the former head of Political Security in Daraa province and another cousin of Bashar al-Assad. Najib was convicted of the murder of children and of torture that resulted in death.

The plaintiff in the trial, Nuha al-Masri, who lost her brother during the regime’s crackdown on the 2011 protests, told the BBC: “We waited 15 years to receive back even a small part of our rights from those who shed our blood.”

She added that the trials should not end with the latest verdicts. “In the new Syria, there will be no more immunity from today onwards,” she said.

The latest rulings are part of a broader effort by Syria’s interim government to prosecute senior figures associated with the former regime following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow after the regime’s collapse, and the death sentences against him and Maher al-Assad were issued in absentia.