Syria sentences former dictator Bashar Al-Assad to death

Syria has sentenced former dictator Bashar Al-Assad to death in absentia for war crimes, Semafor reports. Assad's twenty-four years in power included a brutal crackdown after the 2011 Arab Spring protests and the civil war that followed, in which an estimated six hundred thousand people died, with his regime accused of attacking civilians, including with chemical weapons. He fled to Russia after being deposed in 2024, and Moscow, which backed him throughout the war and shielded him at the UN, is now cooperating with Syria's new government but is unlikely to hand him over.

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