Capital punishment in Syria

Full article adapted from Wikipedia revision 1372328635 by Wikipedia contributors. Text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Formatting has been adapted; article text and references are retained. Snapshot imported 2026-09-25.

Capital punishment is a legal penalty for numerous offences in Syria: the Syrian government holds a retentionist view of capital punishment.

Current laws allow the death penalty for treason; espionage; murder; arson resulting in death; attempting a death-eligible crime; recidivism for a felony punishable by forced labor for life; political acts and military offences such as bearing arms against Syria in the ranks of the enemy, desertion of the armed forces to the enemy, insubordination, acts of incitement under martial law or in wartime; violent robbery; terrorism; subjecting a person to torture or barbaric treatment during the commission of gang-robbery; rape; membership in the Muslim Brotherhood; joining the Islamic State; drug trafficking of narcotics; political dissidence and falsification of material evidence resulting in a third party being convicted for a drug offense and sentenced to death.

On 11 August 2026, a Syrian court sentenced deposed President Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher al-Assad to death in absentia, as part of a ruling against several former regime officials. These sentences were also passed down to multiple former public officials, such as Atef Najib, Fahd Jassem al-Freij, and Mohamed Ayman Ayoush. In total, nine people received death sentences.