International pursuit orders create a formal route for seeking them, while their continued absence means the court’s most consequential penalties cannot immediately be carried out. The sentences represent a major domestic judgment against the former leadership, but their enforcement depends on gaining custody of defendants outside Syria.
Maher Al Assad had commanded the 4th Armoured Division, a powerful formation closely associated with the former government. The new authorities detained hundreds of former officials and security personnel, but many of the most senior figures were believed to be in Russia. Bashar Al Assad fled to Russia after an 11-day insurgent offensive led by Ahmad Al Shara, now Syria’s president, brought the Assad family’s five-decade hold on power to an end.
The courtroom result carried symbolic force inside Syria while custody remained the decisive practical constraint. A sentence delivered without the principal defendants present can establish a domestic judicial record, but international cooperation would be required before those penalties could be enforced against people abroad.
Celebrations were reported in Deraa, where mosque loudspeakers broadcast religious chants after the verdict. Interior Minister Anas Khattab described the rulings as an important step towards justice for victims and said authorities would continue pursuing others alleged to have participated in abuses.
He said killings could be characterized as crimes against humanity and war crimes even though Syrian law does not directly name those categories. The post-Assad authorities have retained much of the existing legal code pending a wider overhaul. The Damascus court’s presiding official, Fakhr Al Aryan, delivered the sentence.
The uprising in Deraa expanded into a nationwide revolt and, by the end of 2011, a civil war. Charges against him included killing, torture, arbitrary detention, using live ammunition to suppress peaceful demonstrations, and systematic killings and fatal torture inside detention centres. Najib, a cousin of Bashar Al Assad, headed political security in Deraa when protests began.
The evidence supplied for this report says Syrian authorities had already issued an arrest warrant for the former president in December on murder and torture allegations, Syria’s initial domestic legal move against its former ruler, whose presidency lasted 24 years. The court ordered that Bashar and Maher Al Assad be pursued internationally.
Six other former officials were sentenced alongside the Al Assad brothers and Najib. The judgment against the former president covered premeditated killings, including the deaths of children younger than 15, as well as torture, arbitrary detention, incitement to murder and crimes against humanity. The Fourth Criminal Court convicted the defendants on charges that included murder and torture.
Bashar and Maher Al Assad were tried in absentia, while former Deraa Political Security Branch chief Atif Najib was tried in person. A court in Damascus sentenced former Syrian president Bashar Al Assad, his brother Maher and seven other former regime officials to death over crimes connected to the violent suppression of protests in Deraa in 2011.
