The Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus convicted Assad of premeditated murder, torture, arbitrary detention and crimes against humanity connected to the brutal suppression of opposition during Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war. His brother Maher al-Assad, the former commander of Syria’s feared 4th Armored Division, was also sentenced to death. Assad fled Syria for Russia in December 2024 as rebel forces swept into Damascus, ending more than five decades of Assad family rule. The Syrian war that followed the 2011 uprising devastated the country, killed roughly half a million people, displaced millions and produced one of the largest refugee crises in modern Middle Eastern history. Less than two years after losing Damascus, Assad is now an exile facing a death sentence from the country he ruled for nearly a quarter-century.