After expanding the authorities of the notorious Military Field Courts, Syria’s former President Hafez al-Assad used them to sentence civilians to death in 1983, following convictions on ordinary criminal charges rather than referring their cases to the civilian judiciary, according to documents obtained by the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism (SIRAJ). The documents reveal another brutal dimension of the Field Courts, showing how an exceptional military tribunal was used to prosecute and execute civilians outside the ordinary judicial system.