Syria's court issues first sentences over 2025 Alawite massacres

A court in Aleppo has handed down the first sentences for the 2025 massacre of Alawites in Syria.

Two supporters of former President Bashar al-Assad were sentenced to death by the Military Criminal Court in Aleppo, while a government officer received a 20-year prison term.

The trials, which have been ongoing since November, concern 14 people, seven members of forces loyal to the government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa and seven Assad loyalists.

Last year, armed attacks on security forces by suspected Assad loyalists in the coastal Alawite heartland of Latakia spiralled into brutal sectarian bloodshed.

At least 1,500 Alawites were killed, with a Reuters investigation tracing much of the violence back to security officials in Damascus.

According to AFP, the court delivered verdicts for four individuals on Thursday, with further rulings expected on 24 September.

Judge Zakaria Bakkar, president of the court, said the government soldier sentenced to 20 years - a member of the Ministry of Defence forces - was found guilty of "intentional murder".

At the start of the trial, several defendants identified as supporters of the former regime pleaded not guilty - one claimed he was in Lebanon at the time of the violence.

Among them, a man from Latakia was sentenced to death by hanging for "aggression aimed at inciting civil war and sectarian clashes".

Another received a life sentence and a third was acquitted.

Sectarian revenge attacks

Syria's 13-year war, which saw hundreds of thousands killed and millions displaced both internally and externally, was sparked in 2011 after government forces cracked down on pro-democracy activists.

While some Alawites supported the pro-democracy movement initially, a combination of government persecution and fears over the increasing proliferation of sectarian armed groups among the opposition saw much of the community throw its weight behind Assad.

With the president's ousting and flight to Moscow in December 2024, there have been increasing calls from Alawites for protection from sectarian revenge attacks and kidnappings.

In July, Amnesty International said it had documented credible reports of 36 kidnappings of Alawite women and girls since December 2024, while the Syrian Feminist Lobby reported that 80 Alawite women and girls had disappeared since early 2025, confirming 26 of those cases to be kidnappings.

Some of those abducted say they were subjected to sectarian abuse, framing the assaults as revenge attacks against the Alawite community, to which the Assad family belonged.

The transitional government of President Sharaa has, however, said the reports have been overstated.

Nour al-Din Baba, the interior ministry spokesman, told the New York Times in April that a government investigation examining 42 reported kidnappings had found that only one of them was “real”.

During a visit to London earlier this year, Sharaa was subjected to protests from Alawites and Alevis - a distinct but historically related religious group, common among Turkish and Kurdish communities - who accused him of facilitating a "genocide" in Syria.

"At a time when Syrians continue to endure displacement, insecurity, and marginalisation, allowing such a figure to enter the UK risks sending the wrong message: that accountability can be overlooked, and that those associated with violence can be normalised on the international stage," said Maher Hamadouch, director of the Syrian Coastal Society (SCS), a UK-based advocacy group for Alawites.