Syria court hands death sentence over coastal violence

Shafaq News- Damascus

A military court in Aleppo on Thursday sentenced one defendant to death, another to life imprisonment and a third to 20 years over violations linked to Syria’s March 2025 coastal violence, while acquitting a fourth, state-run SANA reported.

The verdicts covered four of seven defendants currently before the court in this group of cases, with rulings on the remaining three expected later.

The public trials over the coastal violence began in November 2025 with 14 defendants divided into two groups: seven linked to remnants of Bashar Al-Assad’s former regime and seven from current government and security forces.

During subsequent hearings, the court reviewed evidence and video footage related to the defendants, including material concerning the formation of armed groups, preparations to confront Defense and Interior Ministry forces, threats and weapons sales. Some recordings were referred for technical examination to verify their authenticity and determine when they were produced and published.

Syria’s National Commission for Investigation and Fact-Finding said former-regime loyalists launched coordinated attacks on army and security positions on March 6, 2025, killing 238 personnel. The commission also documented 1,426 civilian deaths during the violence. It said abuses committed against civilians in the following days were carried out by individuals and small groups with varying motives and did not constitute an organized or systematic campaign.

Independent investigations have reached broader conclusions about the violence. A Reuters investigation found that government-aligned forces and armed groups carried out mass killings in Alawite-populated areas between March 7 and 9, documenting nearly 1,500 deaths across more than 40 locations and tracing chains of command toward senior authorities in Damascus.

A subsequent UN Commission of Inquiry found that both forces aligned with Syria’s new government and armed groups loyal to the former Al-Assad government likely committed war crimes during the coastal violence.

The Alawite community, the minority sect from which Al-Assad family comes, bore the brunt of the civilian killings.