sentenced<\/a> a week earlier in absentia because they live in exile in Russia, where they fled after al-Assad was ousted in December 2024.<\/p>\nAl Jazeera\u2019s Obaida Hitto, reporting from outside the court in Damascus, called the conviction and sentencing of Wassim al-Assad \u201cvery significant\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, Wassim al-Assad becomes the first member of the al-Assad family \u2026 to be tried and sentenced in person here in Syria,\u201d Hitto said.<\/p>\n
Who is Wassim al-Assad?<\/p>\n
Arrested in June 2025 upon his return from Lebanon, Wassim al-Assad has long been accused of overseeing the production and smuggling of the amphetamine-like drug Captagon to neighbouring countries during the former regime\u2019s rule. He is also under United States and European sanctions.<\/p>\n
In Syria, Wassim al-Assad faced a range of charges, including establishing and leading pro-regime paramilitary groups since early 2011. He was specifically charged with participating in military operations targeting civilian areas in Eastern Ghouta, particularly the town of al-Mleiha, resulting in the deaths of many civilians.<\/p>\n
Judge al-Aryan said the court had established beyond doubt that an armed group linked to Wassim al-Assad was involved in abducting and killing Syrians.<\/p>\n
However, the court found him not guilty of drug-trafficking charges, ruling there was insufficient evidence of his direct involvement, Hitto reported.<\/p>\n
In addition to the death sentence, the court ordered the confiscation of Wasim al-Assad\u2019s assets.<\/p>\n
The hearings are part of Syria\u2019s broader transitional justice process aimed at addressing past abuses and holding those responsible for crimes against Syrians accountable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cousin of Bashar al-Assad and former regime figure found guilty of crimes including premeditated murder and torture. Published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,129,3,1207,14351,452,453],"class_list":["post-817548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-syria","tag-syrias-war","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787048769_198_2017-06-08T131939Z_1189275883_RC11B0FE7F20_RTRMADP_3_GULF-QATAR-JAZEERA-1714943623.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n