Bashar Assad's cousin sentenced to death

The Fourth Criminal Court of Damascus has sentenced to death Wasim Assad, a cousin of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, finding him guilty of murders and torture classified as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This was reported by the Syria TV channel.

According to its information, the court found Wasim Assad guilty of the premeditated murder of several people, murder involving the use of torture, as well as of actions aimed at inciting civil war and sectarian conflict. In addition, he was charged with unlawful deprivation of liberty and torture as war crimes and crimes against humanity

The court also handed him three years in prison each for intentionally causing harm to health that resulted in permanent disability and for fraud, as well as a fine of 1,000 Syrian pounds. After combining the punishments, the court upheld the most severe of them — the death penalty.

At the same time, Wasim Assad was acquitted of charges of smuggling and drug trafficking for lack of evidence. The court ruled to impose an enforcement seizure on his movable and immovable property.

The decision was issued approximately a year after Wasim Assad's detention in the area of the Syrian-Lebanese border. Court hearings in his case began on June 24.

Wasim Assad was born in 1980 in the city of Qardaha in Latakia province. According to the channel, after the start of the conflict in Syria in 2011, he was linked to the formation of armed groups, supplying them with weapons and financing, as well as to participation in combat operations. He was also accused of murders, extortion, bribery, drug trafficking, and smuggling. At the same time, he did not hold high official positions in the state structures of the former Syrian government. The United States and European countries had previously placed him on sanctions lists in connection with activities related to armed formations and networks for the production and smuggling of captagon. As Syria TV points out, a death sentence does not yet mean its immediate execution: Syrian law provides for a number of procedures before such a decision is carried out, and the sentence itself may be appealed in the established manner.

Source: TASS