Assad cousin exposes family fortune
A dispute that divided Syria’s ruling family has worsened, shedding light on how they used their control of the economy to extract a billion-dollar fortune.
President Bashar al-Assad has imposed a travel ban on his cousin, Rami Makhlouf, who has posted videos on Facebook rejecting demands that he hand over some of his money to the Syrian government.
In his latest post, Makhlouf, 50, says he has put his shareholdings into a family charity, confirming suggestions that assets the president is trying to seize include stakes in international banks.
The statement appears to admit a claim long made against the regime: that it demanded a cut for the ruling family from big businesses setting up in Syria.
The shareholdings included stakes in the local subsidiaries of the Qatar National Bank, Jordan’s Arab Bank and a number of Lebanese private finance houses, indicating the extent to which the family combined business, government and international relations.
Makhlouf’s wording gave no clue as to whether he was aware of the admission he was making.
He referred to claims of his ownership of the bank shareholdings that were circulating: ‘‘We thank them for reminding us of this big list of our contributions to these banking and insurance institutions.’’
His messages are also an implicit recognition of the sectarian nature of the regime. Makhlouf says his charities are funding the ‘‘families of the martyrs’’, a nod to loyalist families, many from the minority Alawite community from which the Assad-Makhlouf family come. Members of the Makhlouf side have complained that the president is transferring the role of ‘‘purse of the regime’’ away from them to the traditional Sunni business elite.
Among the names mentioned are businessmen who have grown rich during the war, but also families close to that of Assad’s wife, Asma, who is Sunni, and those with ties to the Gulf.
The president is said to be viewing the Gulf as the only plausible source of the investment money he needs to rebuild his country.
Makhlouf is the nephew of Assad’s mother, Anisa Makhlouf. Anisa’s brother, Mohammad, oversaw economic affairs for his brother-in-law, Assad’s father, Hafez, who handed power to his son on his death in 2000.
Assad, 54, oversaw the partprivatisation of state business monopolies, and Rami Makhlouf took stakes in Syriatel, the main mobile phone company, an airline, hotels and construction. By the time the war broke out, Makhlouf was Syria’s richest man, worth an estimated US$5 billion (NZ$8b).
Regime insiders say it was always assumed that, as with Mohammed Makhlouf, Rami was merely ‘‘holding’’ the money for the interests of the broader family, and that Assad is now calling in the debt of about US$230 million.
He is said to have come under pressure from Russia to set Syria’s economy on a less corrupt footing. Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat who defected to the West, said Makhouf’s posts were an attempt to use his Alawite support as leverage against being ousted from his economic primacy.
‘‘The Sunni element is the new face of the old game, of running the money for the Assad family,’’ he said. ‘‘Now Russia . . . wants to implement a memorandum of understanding it signed with Assad, which said Rami must not be a partner.’’
Assad’s desperation for funds has been exacerbated by economic collapse. Investment has not materialised amid sanctions, the falling oil wealth of Iran and Russia and an economic crisis in neighbouring Lebanon.
– Sunday Times