This national audience Will try to continue in May judgment Against billionaire Rifat Assad, uncle of the Syrian autocratformer Marbella resident and pseudo-author Laundering of property worth 700 million euros in Spain. To do so, he requested a second report on his state of health “within two months” after the start of the trial was suspended on March 13. Later, Assad filed reports of passing through a hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, as confirmed to this newspaper by his lawyer, Jorge Navarro, of Molins Criminal Defense. Assad now residing Syriaas confirmed by judicial sources.
if it restarts Assad’s defense will be based on the fact of “res judicata”that is, the pre-existence of a final judicial decision on the same object in France, according to Navarro.
Rifat Assad, 85 years old, it was Sentenced to four years in prison in 2020 for laundering and embezzlement of property and funds in France From 1996 to 2016 from the Arab country. His sentence became final last year after his lawyers dismissed his appeal from the gala justice. They believe he has built a real estate empire in Europe through a criminal organization that includes front companies and fronts from various countries. Now France will confiscate Assad’s 90 million euros worth of assets.
Something similar could happen in Spain, but the assets are worth eight times more: 700 million euros, according to the account of the prosecutor, who had access to the indictment of El Periódico de España of the Prensa Ibérica group. The prosecutor’s office demands the seizure of all movable and immovable properties. and shares in all companies involved in laundering transactions.
Requests from the Ministry of Public Affairs for Rifat Assad eight years in prison and a fine of 2.7m euros. For eight relatives, including their children (also defended by lawyer Jorge Navarro), six years and 2.2 million each. They allegedly acted as extras, i.e. persons taking legal responsibility for a job that actually belonged to another person.
The prosecutor thinks that Rifat Assad is in the army. the pinnacle of a “family-like” criminal organization there was a division and distribution of duties: their relatives received a fixed salary for their “work” as extras. So much so that the defendant does not technically own any recognized assets. Rifat al-Assad, who was also the vice president of Syria from 1984 to 1998, began creating this money laundering network in 1986 and was still running it when they started the investigation in Spain in 2016.
Rifaat al-Assad began purchasing 244 parking spaces in Spain in 1986 through a Gibraltar company. continued its investments real estate and businesses MalagaThe indictment adds that it was done by exploiting businesses such as the Hotel Park Plaza Suites or Plaza Beach Banús in Benabola, particularly at strategic points on the Costa del Sol. The list of features is almost endless. It is estimated that there were a total of 507 properties in Spain acquired between 1986 and 2005.
Ba’ath party member
Rifat Assad is a Syrian dictator for decades. He became vice president of the country. He took part, along with his brother Hafez Assad (father of current dictator Bashar Assad), in the assault on power that allowed him to occupy the presidency from 1971 to 2000. Assad is the author of the bloody suppression of first the political opposition and later the jihadist uprisings and an ally of Russia.
Rifat Assad was nicknamed the ‘Butcher of Hama’ for his alleged role in the attacks. bloody print An anti-government riot in Hama in 1982: Between 10,000 and 25,000 deaths occurred according to Amnesty International, these facts are being investigated in Switzerland. He fled Syria after a failed coup attempt against his own brother in 1984. Upon his death, he declared himself his legitimate successor, but his nephew, Bashar Assad, became president.
Since then he has lived in France and Spain in Marbella for decades. The prosecutor points out that after this attempt to seize power, he and his brother agreed to go into exile from the Syrian Presidency for $214 million. However, the total amount of money of illegal origin is estimated by the Syrian opposition to be around 4 billion euros.
Laundering in Gibraltar
Letter to Rifat Assad Beneficiary of two Bahamas-based ‘trusts’ “They are the head of a pyramidal structure of companies whose sole purpose is to conceal the true ownership of a range of assets obtained with illegal money obtained in Syria”.
As part of this framework, it would create properties in Gibraltar to launder assets. “The accused Rifaat al-Assad devised a corporate structure to purchase a series of real estate on Spanish territory, using illegally originating funds for them, concealing their origin and integrating them into Spain. economic activity with a view of legality”, reads the prosecution’s accusation. “To do this, he used not only the individuals who designed such an institutional framework in Gibraltar, who were sentenced to prison and whose license to work was revoked by the Rock authorities on February 8, 2010, but also family members.”
Defendant “tried to create this corporate structure in such a way that it would never be listed. as owner, shareholder or director any of the companies. However, “the managements of the companies show patterns of behavior that prove they form a whole, and the main managers, as well as the sons of the defendants Rifat, Mohammed Ali and Sivar Assad (…) are accountable for all decisions,” he adds.
In May, when the judge decides whether to proceed with the case Case after Assad’s new medical reportAccording to the defense attorney, their child’s case may eventually proceed.