Free Republic

A Syrian court has sentenced ousted president Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia after convicting him of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the country's civil war. BBC reports that Assad fled Syria for Moscow with his family in December 2024 after his regime was overthrown, bringing an end to his family's more than five-decade rule over the country. He has remained in Russia since then, and it is unclear whether Syria's new authorities will be able to secure his extradition. The death sentence marks the latest legal action against Assad by Syria's new leadership. An arrest warrant...

The Chinese regime’s highest court issued a detailed interpretation of a criminal procedure law on Feb. 4, stipulating that trial in absentia can be applied to defendants who “seriously endanger national security” and are based outside China, according to Chinese media reports. “Trial in absentia” refers to criminal proceedings in which a defendant is not physically present to attend said proceedings. China observers worry that the move is aimed at intimidating Chinese dissidents who live abroad. In 2018, China’s rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress, enacted amendments to its criminal procedure law to allow more courts to try people in...

Russia's top investigative body on Wednesday declared Mikhail Khodorkovsky as arrested in absentia, two years after the Kremlin critic and former oil tycoon was pardoned after serving 10 years in prison. Investigators earlier this month accused the former billionaire of involvement in the 1998 murder of a Siberian mayor. On Tuesday, Russian officials searched the residences of several employees of his Open Russia foundation in connection with a probe into a privatization deal. ...

The trial of four men accused of murdering former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri has begun at an unprecedented tribunal at The Hague. The four - alleged associates of the Syria-backed militant Shia movement Hezbollah - have not been arrested and are being tried in absentia. Hariri and 21 others were killed by a massive car bomb in Beirut in 2005. The killings polarised Lebanon and led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops. Hezbollah denies any involvement. It instead says the assassination was part of an Israeli and US conspiracy. Shortly before the trial was to start, a suicide bomb blast...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A revolutionary court Sunday sentenced a prominent liberal political dissident to five years in prison on charges of trying to topple the Islamic system, his lawyer said. Mohammad Mohsen Sazgara was also sentenced in absentia to five years deprivation of his social rights, meaning he cannot take official posts or compete in elections. Sazgara, who lives in the United States, co-organized an Internet-based referendum for Iranian people to vote for their favourite political system in a challenge to the Islamic republic earlier this year. "My client believes his charges are baseless and the revolutionary court is...