An auction of million-dollar assets belonging to Rifaat al Assad, uncle of the current Syrian president Bashar al Assad, brother of the late rais Hafez al Assad and accused at home and abroad of war crimes and against the humanity committed in the 80s of the last century. The Syrian and Lebanese media report it.
Two “hotel particulier”, a castle and 40 luxury apartments were seized
In France, last September, Rifaat Assad was convicted definitively of money laundering and misappropriation of public funds. The French authorities had seized real estate for a total value of around 90 million euros, including two “hotel particulier” and about forty apartments in the chic districts of Paris, a castle and stables in prestigious sites around the French capital.
Porcelains, paintings and chandeliers of the highest value
The movable assets put up for sale today and tomorrow by the Ader auction house in Paris concern those housed in one of the residences of Rifaat Assad, at 38 Avenue Foch. On the website of the Ader auction house, it is possible to consult the entire catalog of chandeliers, paintings, porcelain, tables and hundreds of other objects of very high value which constituted only a small portion of the prestigious collection of the “butcher of Hama”.
The bloody repression of 1982
Assad has in fact been accused by pools of Syrian and international lawyers of being directly responsible for the massacre of thousands of innocent civilians that took place in February 1982 in the Syrian city of Hama during the bloody repression of the internal armed uprising (1979-82) against the then power of Rifaat’s brother, Hafez Assad. Jurists questioned today by the Syrian and Lebanese media specify that the seizure of Rifaat Assad’s real estate came into force together with the French court’s sentence, but that there is no law that also provides for the seizure of Assad’s movable property.
