Syria: Former grand mufti and Assad ally receives life sentence in Syria

The former top Muslim cleric under Bashar al-Assad has been sentenced to life imprisonment in Syria, a Damascus court said on Monday.

Former Grand Mufti Ahmed Badreddin Hassoun, who was arrested at the airport in March 2025 while attempting to leave the country, was sentenced over charges including inciting sectarian hatred and abuse of office.

The Damascus court said Hassoun, the tenth figure from the ousted regime to be convicted by the new transitional government, was guilty of having "stoked civil war and sectarian clashes" as he stood in the courtroom.

Hassoun held the highest religious office for over 16 years and frequently appeared with Assad, who fled Syria after his government collapsed in December 2024.

Additional prison sentences handed to Hassoun on Monday included three to 20 years for "intentional incitement to murder", "direct participation" in killings and inciting "sectarian and racial hatred".

The court further ordered the confiscation of the former mufti's assets.

On 11 August, Assad was sentenced to death in absentia, along with his brother Maher and five former security officials, over crimes committed during Syria's civil war between 2011 and 2024.

Judges also sentenced former security official Atif Najib and Wassim al-Assad, a cousin of the ousted president, to death. Both were present in court. 

The Assad government collapsed during a lightning-fast offensive in the winter of 2024, bringing an end to the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011.

Upwards of 500,000 people were killed in the war, and more than six million became refugees and internally displaced.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former commander in the Islamic State group and its al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front splinter faction, took over as president of the new government.

As leader, Sharaa has sought to distance himself from his past associations with those groups and is trying to align the state closely with Washington and regional powerhouse Turkey.