The history of trials in absentia of deposed leaders reveals a familiar pattern: verdicts announced on paper rarely result in the condemned actually serving time behind bars. The case of Bashar al-Assad is no exception. According to The Guardian, Russian officials previously rejected extradition requests involving him and his brother Maher, a sign that Moscow has no intention of handing over the two figures under its protection.
The death sentence carries only legal weight without enforcement capability, unless Russia changes its position.
Sentence More Symbolic Than Enforceable
The Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus concluded that Assad used the machinery of the state to commit crimes against humanity, according to Judge Fakhareddine al-Aryan whose statement was broadcast live on state television and cited by CNN. The charges against Assad, according to i24NEWS, include deliberate killing of children, torture, and arbitrary detention. However, because Assad and Maher are not present in Syria, the sentence carries only legal weight without enforcement capability, unless Russia changes its position.
The context of the case explains why the maximum sentence was applied. The 14-year civil war resulted in approximately 500,000 deaths, and according to Amnesty International as cited by Open Magazine, more than 100,000 people have gone missing since 2011, mostly due to actions by Assad's government. Euronews reported that the sarin gas attack in Ghouta in 2013 killed approximately 1,400 people according to U.S. intelligence, along with over 80,000 barrel bombs dropped on residential areas throughout the war.
The Only One Actually Facing Punishment
Unlike the two Assad brothers, Atef Najib faced trial in person, standing in an iron cage and wearing prison clothes as the sentence was read. According to Al Jazeera, he was arrested in January 2025 during a sweeping campaign against figures from the old government, and the trial has lasted since late April 2026 with 75 plaintiffs participating. AP News reported that the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Najib starting in 2011 due to his role in the crackdown in Daraa, where the torture of teenagers who painted anti-government slogans sparked the wave of protests that spread nationwide.
Winners and Those Still Waiting
Syria's transitional government under Ahmed al-Sharaa is seen as the immediate political beneficiary: the sentence demonstrates that transitional justice is being implemented, even if only one defendant is actually serving time. Conversely, victims and families wanting to see Assad held accountable will have to wait for a complex international legal process, which depends on the goodwill of Russia, the country that granted political asylum to the Assad family after its government fell.
What bears watching next is whether Syrian courts will expand prosecution to other commanding officers of the 4th Armored Division, the unit formerly commanded by Maher al-Assad and accused of running secret detention centers, or whether revenge violence targeting the Alawite community in northern Syria will continue to obstruct the reconciliation process. For American readers, this is a test of a larger question: how long can transitional justice endure when the condemned is living safely under the protection of another superpower.
Bảo Nguyễn
Bảo Nguyễn founded Saigon Sentinel to give the Vietnamese diaspora truly independent, in-depth community coverage at a time when misinformation moves faster than fact-checks and the language barrier makes verification harder than it should be. He sets the editorial standards and quality controls that govern the reporting, chooses the subjects, writes and edits each article, reads it against its sources before publication, audits published output, and handles corrections.