Who is Atef Najib, former Syrian official sentenced to death with al-Assad?

Former Assad official faces historic trial over the Syrian revolution crackdown.

Atef Najib, the former Syrian security official widely seen as the man who oversaw a regime of murder, torture and forced disappearances against Syrians during the country’s brutal 14-year civil war, has been sentenced to death by a court in Damascus.

On Tuesday, Najib was sentenced alongside ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and his younger brother, Maher al-Assad, who also received the death penalty in absentia for crimes including premeditated murder.

The Fourth Criminal Court found that crimes committed by al-Assad’s government in Deraa province in 2011 amounted to crimes against humanity.

Unlike al-Assad and members of his family who fled to Russia when the regime fell in December 2024, Najib has been in detention in Syria since January 2025. During his trial, he was charged with at least 10 crimes, including murder, torture and responsibility for massacres, as well as crimes against humanity linked to the 2011 Deraa crackdown on protesters.

We unpack who Najib is, what he is charged with and what we know about his trial and verdict.

Najib, 66, is the first cousin of former President Bashar al-Assad and the former head of political security in southern Syria’s Deraa province.

Al-Assad was overthrown in early December 2024, when a coalition of armed opposition groups seized Damascus in a lightning advance and toppled his government. Since his ousting, al-Assad has lived in exile in Moscow under tight Russian supervision, far from any formal role in Syria’s new transitional authorities.