Damascus: Fourth Criminal Court Sentences Defendant Abdel Nasser Baraqi to Death

ARK News.. The Fourth Criminal Court specializing in transitional justice in Damascus issued a death sentence on Thursday, August 27, 2026, against defendant Abdel Nasser Baraqi.

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), Radeef Mustafa, Director of the Accountability and Prosecution Department at the National Authority for Transitional Justice, said the verdict followed the establishment of Baraqi’s responsibility for serious crimes, including enforced disappearance, unlawful deprivation of liberty, complicity in intentional killing, torture resulting in death, violent robbery, and criminal defamation.

Mustafa said the court relied on international law in classifying the alleged acts as war crimes and crimes against humanity, in line with the provisions of Syria’s Constitutional Declaration. This legal framework was used to determine the nature, gravity and circumstances of the crimes, while the sentence itself was determined under Syrian national law.

The court also ordered the consolidation of the penalties and imposed the most severe punishment, the death penalty. It further upheld the seizure of the convicted defendant’s assets and converted the precautionary seizure into an enforceable seizure, while denying him discretionary mitigating circumstances in view of the scale and gravity of the crimes committed.

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