Bashar al-Assad, the ousted president of Syria, is a war criminal.

These are not mere words.

Last week, a court in Damascus sentenced him, his brother Maher and six former Syrian officials to death for murder, torture, arbitrary detention and crimes against humanity, all committed during the long civil war in Syria.

“Bashar al-Assad used state agencies to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity,” said the judge, Fakhareddine al-Aryan, during a court session aired on state television.

The sentences were handed down in absentia and are therefore symbolic. Bashar, Maher and their families fled Damascus in December 2024 as Syrian rebels descended on the capital. They were granted asylum in Moscow by Russian President Vladimir Putin, a close ally of the Assad clan.

The Assads reportedly live in comfort in Moscow and are unlikely to face justice. However, Assad’s maternal cousin, Atef Najib, an official whose brutal crackdown led to a nation-wide uprising that triggered the civil war in 2011, remains in custody in Syria.

The case against Assad is based........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)