Do we like them?

Do we like Bashar al-Assad?

Our score: 0 out of 10. A Syrian court sentenced him to death in absentia, and reporting from the UN, Amnesty and the EU ties his rule to mass harm.

The latest news is the biggest: on 11 August 2026 a Damascus court sentenced Assad to death in absentia. Reports say it also sentenced his brother Maher and other ex-officials, and one cousin who was tried in person. The sentence can still be appealed, and it's tied up with questions about whether Russia would ever hand him over.

He fell in December 2024, when opposition forces took Damascus, and he turned up in Moscow. A statement posted to the former presidency's Telegram channel said he had not planned to leave Syria and that Russia had evacuated him. It's unclear who actually controls that channel. So the man who ran Syria for 24 years now sits in a Russian compound, not answering to anyone.

Outside Syria, French judges have issued arrest warrants for him, including one over a barrel-bomb attack that reportedly killed a French-Syrian man. In 2025 the Cour de Cassation ruled he had immunity while in office, and prosecutors then sought fresh warrants. Syria's government has long denied such accusations.

On chemical weapons, UN inspectors found clear and convincing evidence that sarin was fired at Ghouta in 2013. The mission wasn't asked to say who did it, but Western governments blamed the Assad government. Syria and Russia deny it and point at insurgents, so here the blame is a conclusion from governments, not a UN finding.

Amnesty International's 2017 report said up to 13,000 people were hanged at Saydnaya military prison between 2011 and 2015, and that the killings were approved at the highest levels. That is Amnesty's finding, and the Syrian government rejected such claims. Rights groups also say LGBTQ+ people held in detention faced extra abuse, so this fails the page's own question.

The EU said the Captagon drug trade had become a regime-led business model, and sanctioned Assad's cousins in 2023. Damascus denied involvement. It's one more thread in the pattern: a state that allegedly profited from harm to others.