The Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus sentenced the defendant Wasim al-Assad to death, after convicting him of the charges against him, which included premeditated murder, the torture of civilians, and the formation of armed groups since early 2011 that carried out mass killings in Eastern Ghouta in exchange for salaries and the provision of weapons and funds, resulting in the deaths of a large number of civilians, as well as publicly inciting violence, exploiting his kinship with the ousted President Bashar al-Assad as they are cousins to kill civilians; the involvement of an armed group affiliated with him in the attack on a commercial store in the town of Jaramana, the theft of its contents, and the kidnapping of its owner due to his opposition to the ousted regime; drug smuggling and trafficking; as well as committing crimes of kidnapping, robbery, and extortion, and collaborating with Fourth Division commander Ghayath Dalla in forming and financing groups of assassins.
The court also ordered the provisional seizure of his movable and immovable assets and required him to compensate the private plaintiffs whose claims the court had accepted.
The Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus held its sixth session yesterday, Tuesday, to deliver its verdict in the case against Wasim al-Assad, who is implicated in several crimes against the Syrian people. The session was presided over by Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Arian, in the presence of a number of members of the National Commission for Transitional Justice and representatives of international legal and humanitarian organizations.