Spain seizes property linked to Assad’s uncle
Land, businesses worth more than $900M
MADRID • Spanish police investigating a money- laundering case on Tuesday raided properties and blocked dozens of bank accounts, including some belonging or linked to relatives of former Syrian vice- president Rifaat Assad — the exiled uncle of Syria’s current leader.
Civil Guard police said the searches were carried out in the southern coastal towns of Marbella and Puerto Banus with the aid of French police. They followed a request by National Court judge Jose de la Mata who is probing money- laundering crimes carried out by a gang in the two towns, a court statement said.
Two of Rifaat Assad’s wives and six of his sons are among the 15 people investigated.
The judge ordered the seizure of more than 500 properties owned by Rifaat Assad and his relatives, a court statement said. Most of them are located in Puerto Banus, a luxury marina in Costa del Sol. The property stock, valued at more than $ 900 million, includes a 33-square-kilometre estate.
The accounts of 76 “legal entities” — which include companies, trusts and funds — that were owned, administered or linked to Rifaat Assad and his relatives were also blocked, a court statement said.
The court said that no arrests were made.
Rifaat Assad is the exiled uncle of Syrian President Bashar Assad. He was vicepresident of Syria when the country was ruled by the current leader’s father.
He fled into exile after a failed 1984 coup attempt against his brother, thenpresident Hafez Assad, and lives mostly in France. He tried to take power again in Syria in 2000, when his brother died, but the ruling party closed ranks around Bashar.
In a 2011 interview, Rifaat Assad told the Associated Press that he had lost all his money in the stock market and lived off the largesse of his 16 children. His son Siwar said at the time that the holdings mostly included real estate, TV networks, hotels and a restaurant in Syria.
Rifaat is widely reviled back home. As leader of an elite military corps under his brother Hafez — Syria’s longtime dictator — he allegedly had a role in the 1982 massacre of thousands in the central city of Hama, one of the darkest moments in the modern Middle East.