DAMASCUS: A Syrian court on Tuesday sentenced former ruler Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia after convicting him of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the country’s civil war.

The ruling is the first of its kind under the transitional authorities, who began trying figures from the former government this year, both in person and in absentia. Assad fled with his family to Moscow in December 2024 as rebel forces closed in on Damascus.

Born in 1965, Assad became president in 2000 following the death of his father, Hafez. His early years in power were shaped by the Iraq war and the crisis in Lebanon, but his rule came to be defined by the civil war that grew out of the 2011 Arab Spring, when Syrians who took to the streets demanding democracy were met with lethal force.

The same court also sentenced Atif Najib — a cousin of Assad and former head of political security in Daraa province, the cradle of the 2011 uprising — to death for crimes against humanity. Najib, arrested in January last year, was convicted of offences including murder, the intentional killing of children under 15, and torture leading to death.

The court described the acts attributed to him as crimes against humanity in handing down what it called the harshest available punishment.