Thirteen convictions out of 298 suspects as Aleppo closes the coastal-violence trials

The Military Criminal Court at the Palace of Justice in Aleppo delivered nine verdicts on 15 October, according to SANA, carried by Al Jazeera, The National and AP. Al-Waddah Ismail and Maher Ali were sentenced to death for seeking to incite civil war and sectarian fighting and for leading armed gangs with intent to attack public forces; Maher Othman received 12 years. Mohammed Bakour, a member of the Defence Ministry’s 82nd Division in the new government, was sentenced to 20 years for intentional homicide; Ammar Abdul Aal received three years for torture; Abdul Raouf Bakrjan and Mohammed Zarzouri were acquitted. Reporting from Aleppo and Paris on 20 October, Bushra Alzoubi and Karam Amer of JusticeInfo.net established the shape of the exercise: 16 hearings between 18 November 2025 and 15 October 2026, in two successive parts, one for defendants tied to the former regime and one for members of government forces.

The arithmetic is the story. The national investigation established by President Ahmad al-Sharaa identified 1,426 people killed, including 90 women, recorded 20 missing, collected 938 testimonies and named 298 suspects in serious violations against civilians, alongside 265 people suspected of involvement in attacks by armed groups linked to the former regime. Thirteen people have been convicted to date — four on 17 September, nine on 15 October. Four further defendants are being tried in Damascus behind closed doors, a format criticised by Al-Kilani, who told JusticeInfo that “live broadcasting is an essential means of ensuring the transparency of trials”. A commentary carried by Ultra Syria and republished by The Syrian Observer on 20 October — opinion, not reporting — poses the question the verdicts avoid: whether accountability reaches the military leadership commanding the forces deployed after armed groups attacked government positions in Latakia, Tartous and Hama on 6 March 2025.

Assessment: The single most consequential line is Bakour’s 20 years: a serving soldier of the new army convicted of homicide, which is what distinguishes this from a victors' tribunal. The two death sentences are the easiest headlines and the least diagnostic — both fell on pro-Assad insurgents convicted of incitement, not of the 1,426 deaths. IBTimes UK nonetheless ran “Syria Sentences Two to Death Over 1,426 Killings”, and an aggregation tracker logged outlets splitting on whether UN findings establish systematic violence. Watch the four in-camera Damascus trials and the 285 unindicted suspects, not the gallows.