Tribune. The appeal trial of Rifaat Al-Assad, sentenced in June 2020 to four years in prison for laundering of embezzlement of public funds, opens on May 5 before the Paris Court of Appeal. At the same time, the Senate is preparing to examine the programming bill relating to solidarity development and the fight against global inequalities establishing a mechanism for the return of assets resulting from corruption to the despoiled populations in the countries of ‘origin.
This coincidence of timing should convince senators of the importance of ensuring the transparency and accountability of the mechanism they are about to examine.
Without Sherpa, Transparency International France and CCFD-Terre solidaire (Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development), there would have been no case of “ill-gotten gains”. The three NGOs were at the initiative, in 2007, of an unprecedented judicial saga by allowing the initiation of public action against foreign leaders and their entourage leading a luxurious lifestyle in France in total discrepancy with the official revenues they receive in their countries.
In parallel with these judicial marathons, the three NGOs have carried out for many years a meticulous plea with the public authorities for the restitution of assets to the populations in the countries of origin, the first victims of the corruption of their leaders. Fourteen years later, this work is on the verge of completion. A bill creating a mechanism for restitution of assets, amended in committee by the senators, comes to a plenary session in the Senate on May 11 and 12.
A victory
Like other major cases of ill-gotten gains, this trial against Rifaat Al-Assad opens up the possibility of putting an end to the impunity that some foreign leaders have enjoyed until now. In these cases, it is above all the desire to see one day returned the goods confiscated from the populations in the countries of origin which motivated the constitutions of civil parties of the associations.
Following a complaint with the constitution of civil party filed by Sherpa in 2013, the prosecution initiated by the public prosecutor against Rifaat Al-Assad, uncle of Bashar Al-Assad [président de la Syrie] and former cacique of the Damascus regime, led to a historic trial, in June 2020, which placed the repression of money laundering and the issue of restitution of assets at the heart of the debates.
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