DAMASCUS, Aug. 20 -- A week ago a Damascus court sentenced Bashar al-Assad to death and he did not hear it. He is in Russia, as is his brother Maher, and the judgment against them was read into an empty space where two defendants should have stood. On Tuesday the same process produced a different scene. Wassim al-Assad, their cousin, was in the room.

The Fourth Criminal Court sentenced him to death for intentional killings and acts of torture that it classified as crimes against humanity and war crimes, the state news agency SANA reported. The court also ordered his movable and immovable property confiscated to the public treasury. He becomes the first member of the Assad family to be sentenced in person rather than in absentia.

That di...