Atef Najib, a former Syrian security official known for overseeing a regime of murder, torture, and forced disappearances during Syria’s 14-year civil war, has been sentenced to death by a court in Damascus on Tuesday, August 11, 2026.

Najib was sentenced alongside ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and his younger brother, Maher al-Assad, who also received the death penalty in absentia for crimes including premeditated murder. The Fourth Criminal Court ruled that crimes committed by al-Assad’s government in Deraa province in 2011 constituted crimes against humanity.

Najib, 66, is the first cousin of Bashar al-Assad and was the head of political security in southern Syria’s Deraa province. He assumed this role after the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who had been in power since 1970. Unlike the al-Assad family members who fled to Russia following the regime's fall in December 2024, Najib has been detained in Syria since January 2025.

During his trial, Najib faced charges on at least 10 counts, including murder, torture, responsibility for massacres, and crimes against humanity linked to the 2011 crackdown on protesters in Deraa. The Ministry of Interior’s general security forces arrested him in January 2025 during a campaign targeting remnants of the former government in Latakia province.

According to an Al Jazeera Mubasher report, 75 plaintiffs filed cases against Najib and provided testimony during the trial. A 2025 report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights stated that over 181,000 people were forcibly disappeared or arbitrarily detained during the war, with 90 percent attributed to the al-Assad regime.

Experts have described this trial as a significant test of Syria’s transitional justice process.

Sources