It is perhaps the end of the strange impunity enjoyed in France by Rifaat Al-Assad, the uncle of President Bashar Al-Assad and ex-executioner of the Syrian opposition, which has been flowing for thirty years. quiet days, between its mansion on the very posh avenue Foch, in Paris, and its properties on the Costa del Sol and the banks of the Thames. The younger brother of Hafez Al-Assad, founder of the Baathist regime, was sentenced on Wednesday June 17 to four years in prison, for having formed in France, with Syrian taxpayer money, a real estate empire of worth 90 million euros.
The Paris Criminal Court, which sanctioned "Facts of exceptional gravity", ordered the confiscation of these "ill-gotten gains" without, however, issuing an arrest warrant against the octogenarian, absent from the trial on medical grounds. His lawyers, who denounced "A political trial", "Without any evidence of illicit financial flows", announced their intention to appeal. Given his age and poor health, it is unlikely that Rifaat Al-Assad will ever go to prison.
Low works
The head of the Defense Brigades, a paramilitary group in charge of the Syrian regime’s underhand works, is accused of having orchestrated in 1982 the bloody reconquest of Hama, then epicenter of an anti-government insurrection, led by the Muslim Brotherhood. From this operation, which caused thousands of deaths, mostly civilians, and led to the destruction of part of the historic center of the city, he kept a nickname: the "butcher of Hama". Two years earlier, in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt on Hafez Al-Assad, he had sent his henchmen to massacre hundreds of detainees in Palmyra prison.
In 1984, the relationship between the two brothers turned sour. Taking advantage of the president's hospitalization, the ambitious Rifaat ordered the Defense Brigades to deploy to Damascus. But the coup is thwarted and the youngest member of the Assad family, ousted from the army, is forced into exile. He first settled in Switzerland, then in France, with a following of 200 faithful. He who did not have any personal fortune, begins to build an immense heritage, mainly in Spain, but also in the United Kingdom and in France where he acquires, in addition to his residence on avenue Foch, dozens of apartments of standing in the beautiful Parisian districts and an area of 45 hectares in Val-d'Oise.
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