Syria's Hardline Sunni Regime Sentences Bashar al-Assad To Death In Absentia

The new government in Damascus has tried to press Moscow to return to Syria the former longtime President Bashar al-Assad. He's reportedly lived in a posh area of the Russian capital, under heavy security, since he was ousted in December 2024 and forced to flee.

Perhaps realizing they will never apprehend him, a Syrian court under the new hardline Sunni Hayat Tahrir al-Sham government has on Tuesday sentenced the former ruler to death after a trial in absentia, convicting him of war crimes and atrocities during the prior 14-years of internal war which overtook the country.

Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan in Damascus convicted Assad for crimes including "premeditated murder, the intentional killing of more than one person, the intentional killing of children under 15 years... torture, torture leading to death, and deprivation of liberty on multiple occasions -- classified as crimes against humanity and war crimes."

"He is therefore sentenced to death," the court ruled. Other former high ranking officials in the Assad government are expected to be brought before the courts on similar charges. Many of them, including clerics and generals, are currently held in Syrian detention.

Some of these officials have been listed in AFP reporting: "The court also sentenced six former military and security officials in absentia to death including Assad's brother Maher, who ran the army's elite Fourth Division and also fled the country," AFP wrote.

"Those convicted included former defense minister Fahd al-Freij and Louay al-Ali, who headed military intelligence in Daraa province in 2011," the report noted.

The quasi-secular Syrian Ba'ath Party and Assad family had ruled Syria going back to 1970. This came about in the context of a permanent state of war with Israel, and particularly over the Golan Heights, as well as a long-running conflict with radical jihadist factions from within.

Prior to Assad family rule, Syria had suffered some dozen coups and changes of leadership, with many of these involving US and UK intelligence plots.

When there were signs of anti-Assad unrest in early 2011, the United States once again ramped up its covert intervention in Syria, pouring weapons and support into so-called 'moderate rebels' who went on to form the core of Syrian al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Meanwhile, meet the new Syrian government's top diplomatic point man to Washington, who previously kidnapped Americans as an AQ operative...

My interview with the Syrian chargé d'affaires to the US back when he was a member of Jabhat al-Nusra. pic.twitter.com/g0NSaH1WUp

— Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell) July 28, 2026

Facing a Western and Gulf armed Sunni insurgency, the Assad government sought to put down the proxy war in brutal fashion. But ultimately after many years of covert and economic war, the West won out, and from this emerged Syrian al-Qaeda founder (Nusra Front/HTS) Abu Mohammad al-Jolani.

He is now the self-declared President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and the West and Gulf nations have embraced him and his Sunni-dominant government as their 'friend' and puppet.

As for Assad, there have been recent rumors and reports the and his family have traveled abroad at times, making secretive visits to the Gulf region.