A Damascus court on Tuesday sentenced nine former regime officials, including Bashar Al Assad, his brother Maher and security official Atef Najib, to death on charges of murder and torture.
Mr Najib was tried in person, while the others were tried in absentia. The Fourth Criminal Court also ordered that Bashar and Maher Al Assad be pursued internationally.
The court convicted Bashar Al Assad of premeditated murder of multiple people, including children, as well as torture, arbitrary detention and crimes against humanity.
Atef Najib was indicted on charges including killing, torture and arbitrary detention, participation in the suppression of peaceful protests using live ammunition, and systematic mass killings and torture of detainees resulting in death inside detention centres.
A cousin of Bashar Al Assad, he previously served as head of the Political Security Branch in Daraa, the birthplace of the uprising that turned into a bloody civil war. Deraa had long had a reputation as being solidly pro-Assad. However, Atef Najib's imperious two-year reign there was instrumental in turning it against the regime.
Last December, Syrian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Bashar Al Assad on murder and torture charges, the first legal action against him by the country he ruled for 24 years.
Mr Al Assad fled to Russia when Ahmad Al Shara, now Syrian President, led insurgents in a lightning, 11-day offensive that ended five decades of Assad family rule. In the past months, the government has captured hundreds of former officials and security operatives, but not the top echelons of the former regime, most of whom are in Russia.
In the last decade of the former regime, Syrian dissidents sought legal action against Mr Al Assad in western countries, but failed to achieve any results. His troops, as well as loyalist militias, killed thousands of civilians in the initial crackdown on the revolt in Deraa and the rest of Syria. By the end of 2011, Syria was in civil war.
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