Fri 10 September 2021:
The Paris Court of Appeals affirmed a four-year prison term for Syria’s Bashar al-uncle Assad’s for “misappropriating public funds and money laundering” on Thursday.
Rifaat al-Assad, 84, was condemned last year by the Paris Criminal Court for offences committed between 1996 and 2016. He did not attend the hearing.
The court also ordered to seize his assets in France, believed to be worth €90 million ($106 million), because he is known to own a number of high-end houses in Paris and Lyon.
Assad was also found guilty of fraudulently utilizing Syrian public funds to build a “real estate empire.”
Rifaat al-Assad has been under investigation in France since 2014.
The younger brother of the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad – father of the incumbent president – was tried for crimes allegedly committed between 1984 and 2016, including aggravated tax fraud and misappropriation of Syrian funds.
A Paris court last June dismissed charges against Rifaat al-Assad for the period 1984 to 1996, but found him guilty of organised laundering of funds embezzled from the Syrian public purse between 1996 and 2016. He was also convicted of tax fraud.
Formerly Syria’s vice president, Rifaat al-Assad left his home country in 1984 after mounting a failed coup against his brother Hafez, who led Syria from 1971 to 2000.
His French fortune includes two townhouses in chic Parisian neighbourhoods, a stud farm, about 40 apartments and a chateau, AFP said.
Rifaat al-Assad and his family also built up a huge portfolio of properties in Spain, valued at around 695 million euros ($822m), which were all seized by the authorities in 2017, it reported.
The French case against him began with a suit filed in 2013 by anti-corruption campaign group Sherpa.
3.This decision is a victory that emphasizes the importance of establishing a binding framework for the operational aspects of the restitution of assets derived from grand corruption. 👉https://t.co/MlREnfZvtH#IGG #restitution #transparency
— Sherpa (@Asso_Sherpa) September 9, 2021
Moreover, the organisation said the funds should be allocated “to projects in the areas of health, education, and good governance”.
Rifaat al-Assad is also widely held responsible for the suppression of an uprising in 1982 against Hafez in which many thousands were killed.
According to Amnesty International, Rifaat al-Assad, the then-Chief of General Staff, was responsible for the 1982 Hama massacre, which killed between 10,000 and 25,000 civilians.
He was expelled from Syria two years after Hama for attempting to overthrow his brother Hafez al-Assad.
Rifaat is known to have visited Paris, London, and Marbella, Spain on occasion.
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