SYRIAN TYCOON RAMI MAKHLOUF SAYS REGIME IS TARGETING HIS FEMALE STAFF

Fri 10 July 2020:

A rift between Mr Al Assad and Mr Makhlouf became public in May, exposing the financial core of Syria’s Alawite-dominated regime and a huge business network to which the two cousins are associated.

Mr Makhlouf, who was awarded vast monopolies when President Bashar Al Assad inherited power from his father in 2000, said on Facebook that the women were being detained in a continuation of “arbitrary” arrests against his employees.

He said the security apparatus “was not satisfied” with holding only men “and started pressuring the women in our institutions by arresting them one by one”.

His whereabouts are not known but he has been under a court-ordered travel ban since May.

He said security forces in recent weeks “closed several companies arbitrarily, making hundreds of our employees redundant”.

Almost all of his top managers have also been arrested in the past six months, he said, after the security organisation “did not get what it wanted, which is to make us submit”.

Mr Makhlouf said the men were forced to make false confessions of dealing illegally in foreign currency “to harm our reputation”, while women faced charges he did not specify.

“Isn’t this peak of the forbidden?” he asked. “Where is the law? Where are the regulations? Where is the constitution to protect these innocent people?

“Are they terrorists? All of this for what? To force us to relinquish our properties and monies [of which] we are custodian on behalf of the poor and the needy?”

A rift between Mr Al Assad and Mr Makhlouf became public in May, exposing the financial core of Syria’s Alawite-dominated regime and a huge business network to which the two cousins are associated.

Bankers say the fissure deepened amid the financial meltdown in Lebanon, where Mr Makhlouf is believed to have kept some of the billions of dollars he holds on behalf of Mr Al Assad and the president’s brother Maher, who is the de facto head of the military.

Makhlouf is Syria’s richest man and al-Assad’s maternal first cousin. He was known as the “exclusive agent of Syria,” whose dominance over the economy for over two decades served to bankroll the regime and the Assad family.

Makhlouf’s role in the war

Washington slapped sanctions on Makhlouf in 2008, stating that he “used intimidation and his close ties to the Assad regime to obtain improper business advantages at the expense of ordinary Syrians.”

When anti-regime protests began in the city of Dar’aa in 2011, Makhlouf was evoked in slogans as a “thief.”

The role he then played in the ensuing war would only reinforce his position. Makhlouf maintained his position at Syriatel, laundering money for the cash strapped regime, funding loyalist militias supporting al-Assad, and paying reparations to the families of fallen soldiers.

He sided with Bashar’s view that a show of strength was the only solution to the growing protests. His brother Hafez Makhlouf, a senior intelligence official, is believed to have given the orders to shoot to kill on the demonstrators, which led to thousands of deaths.

Among the “humanitarian work” that Makhlouf refers to in his videos, is his charity Al-Bustan, which funded a militia of the same name. Experts say the militia was among the most brutal and its fighters were paid twice the Syrian Army’s salaries.

Another revelation from Makhlouf’s videos was his patronage of the Syrian intelligence services during the war, a dreaded institution whose members are currently facing trial in Europe for crimes against humanity.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!