(SeaPRwire) – By: Julian Holbrooke
“Bashar Assad used state agencies to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity.” That is Judge Fakhareddine al-Aryan speaking at the Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus. Tuesday’s death sentences against the ousted Syrian president and his brother Maher Assad are historic. They mark the first convictions of the Assad inner circle in over a year and a half. They are also legally meaningless from the moment they were pronounced.
The court sentenced Bashar and Maher Assad to death in absentia. They fled to Russia in December 2024 after a lightning rebel offensive toppled their regime. Russia granted them political asylum. Syria’s new rulers have formally requested extradition. Moscow has not complied. The sentence is a judgment on paper against men who are sitting somewhere in the Russian Federation with diplomatic protection that no Syrian court can penetrate.
The facts on the ground tell a story that the verdict itself cannot resolve. Syria’s civil war lasted 14 years. Approximately half a million people died during that conflict. It began when more than a dozen teenagers in Daraa province were arrested and tortured for anti-government graffiti on a school wall. That crackdown was overseen by Atef Najib, Assad’s maternal cousin. He was also sentenced to death Tuesday. Najib stands behind bars in a cage at the courthouse. He is wearing a prisoner’s uniform. The contrast could not be starker. One man is caged in Damascus. Two men are free in Moscow.
The regime’s five decades of rule ended 20 months ago. The transitional government needs to demonstrate that it can deliver accountability. This verdict serves that purpose. It establishes a legal record. It names crimes that were committed with state machinery. Opposition activists have long accused Maher Assad’s 4th Armored Division of running its own detention centers, committing killings, torturing detainees, and engaging in extortion and drug trafficking. The court has now codified those accusations into formal convictions.
But the gap between legal judgment and enforceable justice is where this story actually lives. Russia controls the physical location of the men sentenced. Damascus controls nothing in that equation. The new government can pass verdicts. It cannot execute them. Every sentence against the Assad family that remains unenforced weakens the perception of Syrian state authority rather than strengthening it. Justice requires coercion. Without it, verdicts are theatrical gestures. Moscow understands this. It has no incentive to hand over asylum holders to a court it can safely ignore.
Author bio: Julian Holbrooke is an overseas international relations analyst who frequently contributes to major European daily newspapers, with a focus on post-Soviet power dynamics and Middle Eastern geopolitical shifts.