A week after Assad's sentencing: the dictator's cousin sentenced to death in Damascus

Damascus's Fourth Criminal Court on Tuesday sentenced Wassim al-Assad, cousin of ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, to death after convicting him of premeditated murder and torture constituting crimes against humanity. Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Arian ruled that al-Assad was involved in establishing armed groups that committed massacres in Eastern Ghouta. The sentence includes confiscation of his assets. The decision comes a week after death sentences in absentia were handed down against Bashar and Maher al-Assad.

Damascus's Fourth Criminal Court on Tuesday morning sentenced Wassim al-Assad, cousin of ousted Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, to death after convicting him of premeditated murder and acts of torture constituting crimes against humanity and war crimes. Court president Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Arian noted that the investigation proved al-Assad was involved in establishing armed groups that committed massacres in civilian areas in Eastern Ghouta, raided shops, and kidnapped and murdered Syrian civilians. The sentence also includes confiscation of all his assets for the state treasury. The decision comes just a week after the court on August 11 sentenced Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher, and other senior former regime officials to death in absentia. Also tried alongside them and present in the courtroom was Atef Najib, former head of political security in Daraa province and another cousin of Assad, convicted of murdering children and torture leading to death. The prosecutor in the trial, Noha al-Masri, who lost her brother in the suppression of protests in 2011, told the BBC: "We waited 15 years to get back even a small part of our rights." The verdicts come following a process of prosecuting public figures led by Syria's interim government since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.