Assad’s uncle Rifaat has fled to Dubai, Lebanese officials say

Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of the ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad charged in Switzerland with war crimes for the bloody suppression of an uprising in 1982, flew from Beirut in Dubai in recent days, two Lebanese security officials said on Friday.

Officials said “many members” of the Assad family had traveled to Dubai from Beirut and others had remained in Lebanon since Assad was toppled on December 8. Lebanese authorities have not received Interpol arrest requests, including Rifaat, officials said. .

The United Arab Emirates The Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Lebanese officials said they did not know if Rifaat or other members of the Assad family planned to stay in Dubai or travel elsewhere.

Rifaat, in his late 80s, was the brother of Assad’s father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, and led the elite forces that crushed a 1982 Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the city of Hama, killing more than 10,000 people. In 2022, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) monitoring group claimed that between 30,000 and 40,000 civilians had been killed in Hama.

The General Prosecutor’s Office of Switzerland referred Rifaat al-Assad for trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the killings and torture in Hama, under the principle that all countries have jurisdiction over these crimes. He denied responsibility.

This month, Swiss judicial authorities said they had suggested the trial might be delayed because of his ill health.

The 1982 Hama attack is often described as the model for Bashar al-Assad’s subsequent crackdown on the rebellion that began in 2011 and toppled him this month. When the rebels captured Hama on December 6, their leader Ahmed al-Sharaa referred to it, saying they would “clean up that wound that has persisted in Syria for 40 years”.

Rifat al-Assad helped Hafez al-Assad seize power in a 1970 coup and served as vice president before unsuccessfully challenging his brother for power and going into exile.

He has lived in Switzerland, Spain and France, where a court found him guilty in 2020 of purchasing properties worth millions of euros using funds embezzled from the Syrian state. In 2021 he returned to Syria.

Lebanese officials said his son Duraid’s wife and their daughter were detained for trying to travel from Beirut airport on Friday using expired passports that had been altered.

Earlier this month, Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said Assad’s top adviser, Bouthaina Shaaban, had left Beirut after entering Lebanon legally. In an interview with Al Arabiya, Mawlawi said other Syrian officials had entered Lebanon illegally and were being tracked.

Acting Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Monday that Lebanon would cooperate with an Interpol request to arrest former Syrian intelligence officer Jamil Hassan, accused by US authorities of war crimes under Assad.

(REUTERS)