Syria Jails Assad's Former Grand Mufti
- A Damascus court sentenced former Assad-era Grand Mufti Ahmed Badreddine Hassoun to life imprisonment on 24 August 2026.
- Hassoun was convicted of inciting sectarian hatred and abusing his authority as Syria's most senior religious official under the previous government.
- He was arrested at a Syrian airport in March 2025 while attempting to leave the country.
A Damascus tribunal has sentenced Ahmed Badreddine Hassoun, the former Grand Mufti of Syria under Bashar al-Assad's government, to life imprisonment after convicting him of inciting sectarian hatred and abusing his authority. The verdict was delivered on Monday, 24 August 2026.
Arrest and trial
Hassoun was present in court to hear his sentence pronounced. He had been detained in March 2025 after security forces apprehended him at a Syrian airport as he was attempting to leave the country. No details of any defence submissions or planned appeal have emerged from available reporting.
Charges and conviction
The Damascus court found him guilty on two counts: incitement to confessional — or sectarian — hatred, and abuse of the public office he held as the country's most senior Sunni religious authority under the former administration. The charges reflect the gravity with which the new Syrian authorities appear to be treating the conduct of senior figures from the previous era.
The conviction stands as one of the most prominent prosecutions of an Assad-era religious official to date. It comes as Syria continues a sweeping process of political and institutional transformation — one that has also seen Kurdish forces formally integrate into the Syrian state, and international actors recalibrate their posture towards Damascus following the United States removing Syria from its state sponsors of terrorism list. The full scale of accountability proceedings against other figures linked to the former government remains unresolved.
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