Guernsey adviser funneled Assad money through her personal bank account

Assad family members including Rifaat, center, and his nephew Bashar. (Photograph: X)
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Updated 16 December 2024
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Guernsey adviser funneled Assad money through her personal bank account

  • Rifaat Assad, known as the ‘Butcher of Hama’ for overseeing the violent suppression of a rebellion in the 1980s, used an adviser in Guernsey to secretly manage his wealth
  • Ginette Louise Blondel, in one instance, used her personal bank account to distribute €1 million to third parties on her client’s behalf

LONDON: A financial adviser on the Channel Island of Guernsey funneled the ill-gotten gains of an uncle of Bashar Assad through her personal bank account.

Rifaat Assad, known as the “Butcher of Hama” for overseeing the violent suppression of a rebellion in the 1980s, used an adviser in Guernsey to secretly manage his wealth, which included a vast European property empire worth hundreds of millions of euros that prosecutors claim was acquired with funds looted from the war-torn state.

Rifaat Assad has been accused of war crimes by Swiss prosecutors and was convicted by a French court, in 2020, of embezzling Syrian state funds and pouring the money into luxury properties, with the French state seizing assets worth €90 million ($94.5 million).

In a joint investigation, The Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism have now identified him as a client of a Guernsey consultant who was fined by regulators earlier this year. Ginette Louise Blondel, 40, was banned from working as a director for nine years and fined £210,000 ($266,000) by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission in March.

Originally employed as a personal assistant for the son of her client, then as a consultant, Blondel went on to manage a complex trust structure on the family’s behalf, according to a notice published by the regulator. In one instance, her personal bank account was used to distribute €1 million to third parties on her client’s behalf.

The notice does not name Blondel’s employer, simply referring to them as “Client 1.” However, details of the case, and evidence gathered by international prosecutors, indicate that Client 1 was Rifaat Assad.

A brother of Hafez Assad, who seized power in Syria in a 1971 coup, Rifaat was the head of the Defense Brigades. His elite forces allegedly oversaw the massacre of an estimated 20,000 people in the town of Hama in 1982.

The Assad regime collapsed this month as rebel groups seized control of the capital, Damascus, after more than a decade of civil war. Assad family members have been granted asylum in Moscow. It is unclear whether Rifaat, now 86, is among them. His European wealth remains in limbo, with freezing orders imposed in the UK, Spain and France, meaning properties cannot be sold without permission from the authorities.

The regulator’s case against Blondel is a window into the role played by tax havens such as Guernsey in enabling ultra-wealthy individuals — even those suspected of the most serious atrocities — to shelter and grow their wealth in Europe.

“Rifaat Assad’s crimes, particularly the 1982 Hama massacre, are among the gravest atrocities of our time,” said Philip Grant, the executive director of Trial International, which filed the criminal complaint against him in Switzerland.

Chanez Mensous, a lawyer at the nongovernmental organization Sherpa, which initiated the French criminal complaint against Rifaat, called on European governments to repatriate money raised from asset seizures to vulnerable Syrians. “Restitution is essential,” she said.

In 2013, two years into the Syrian civil war, Swiss prosecutors began investigating Rifaat’s alleged role in the Hama case. He was uniquely vulnerable to prosecution, having been expelled from Syria in 1984 after staging a failed coup against his brother.

In exile he set up home in France while developing an €800 million real estate portfolio with offices, villas, mansions and apartments in London, Paris and Marbella. A 2019 judgment from one of the cases against him disclosed that more than 500 properties belonging to Rifaat were under asset freezes.

According to Spanish prosecutors, the properties were owned by companies whose directors included Rifaat’s frontpeople or numerous family members — he was reported to have had four wives and 16 children — but rarely by the man himself.

His property empire has included:

  • The Witanhurst Estate in Highgate, north London — the second-largest private residence in the capital after Buckingham Palace. Rifaat sold it for £32 million to developers in 2007 after leaving it in disrepair.
  • A £50 million mansion in South Street, Mayfair. Owned through a shell company in the British Virgin Islands, it was frozen by British proceeds-of-crime prosecutors in 2017.
  • A seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom estate in Leatherhead, Surrey, with a gym, tennis court and indoor swimming pool. It was sold for £4 million in 2016 before prosecutors could impose an asset freeze.
  • A seven-story mansion on Avenue Foch, which leads to the Arc de Triomphe in the most expensive arrondissement of Paris. Art and furnishings from the property were auctioned but the property itself is frozen.
  • Thirty-two apartments in Avenue du President Kennedy, Paris, which runs along the bank of the Seine next to the Eiffel Tower.
  • La Maquina, a €60 million estate occupying almost a third of the entire Marbella resort town of Benahavis. La Maquina’s footprint is so expansive that the Assads were reported to have considered transforming it into an enclave exclusively for wealthy Syrians.

Spanish prosecutors alleged that the source of the funds used to buy those properties was a combination of $200 million stolen from the Syrian state and disguised as expenses, and a $100 million loan from Libya. Rifaat and his associates were accused of profiting from “huge illicit resources from multiple criminal activities: extortion, threats, smuggling, plundering of archaeological wealth, usurpation of real estate, [and] drug trafficking.”

Rifaat left France for Syria in 2021, shortly before the French court of appeal upheld his June 2020 conviction for money laundering and aggravated tax fraud, for which he was sentenced to four years in prison. In March this year, Swiss prosecutors charged him with war crimes and crimes against humanity.


Lebanese PM to visit Syria, discuss disappearance of prisoners

Updated 13 April 2025
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Lebanese PM to visit Syria, discuss disappearance of prisoners

  • Nawaf Salam lays wreath at Martyrs’ Monument in Beirut to commemorate 50th anniversary of Lebanese Civil War

LONDON: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is scheduled to visit the Syrian Arab Republic on Monday to discuss common interests with the new leadership in Damascus.

It will be Salam’s first visit to Syria since he formed a government in February, and he is scheduled to discuss the issue of Lebanese citizens who disappeared in Syrian prisons during the Bashar Assad regime that collapsed in December. It has been reported that 622 Lebanese nationals remain forcibly disappeared in Syrian prisons.

“I hope to return with good news about those missing in Syria, and I will update the Lebanese people on this issue tomorrow,” Salam said, according to the National News Agency.

Salam laid a wreath at the Martyrs’ Monument in Beirut on Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of April 13, the date when Lebanon’s Civil War began in 1975.

Salam wrote on X: “We pause not to reopen wounds, but to recall lessons that must never be forgotten. All victories were false, and all parties (from the war) emerged as losers.”

He added: “There can be no true state unless legitimate armed forces have the exclusive right to bear arms.”


Aid worker missing after deadly attack on colleagues is held by Israel, ICRC says

PRCS paramedic Assad Al-Nsasrah is being held in an Israeli place of detention. (@PalestineRCS)
Updated 13 April 2025
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Aid worker missing after deadly attack on colleagues is held by Israel, ICRC says

  • PRCS demanded the immediate release of Nsasrah, who it said was “forcibly abducted” while carrying out humanitarian duties

CAIRO: A Palestinian Red Crescent staff member who went missing in late March when 15 humanitarian workers were killed by Israeli fire is being detained by Israeli authorities, the rescue service and the Red Cross said on Sunday.
Hisham Mhana, the spokesperson for the ICRC in Gaza, confirmed to Reuters that it had received information that the Palestine Red Crescent Society paramedic Assad Al-Nsasrah was being held in an Israeli place of detention.
“As per standard practice, we informed the families immediately. In this case, we also informed the Palestine Red Crescent Society as they have special standing as a partner of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement,” he said.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment.
Mhana said the ICRC has not been granted access to Nsasrah, who until Sunday had been declared missing, and also has not been able to visit any of the Palestinian detainees and prisoners in Israeli jails since October 7, 2023.
In a post on X, The PRCS demanded the immediate release of Nsasrah, who it said was “forcibly abducted” while carrying out humanitarian duties.
It added that Nsasrah and his colleagues came under heavy gunfire, which led to the killing of eight of them in a “grave violation” of international humanitarian law.
The bodies of 15 emergency and aid workers from the Red Crescent, the Civil Emergency Service and the UN were found buried in a mass grave in southern Gaza in March.
The UN and the Red Crescent accused Israeli forces of killing them after they were dispatched to respond to reports of injuries from Israeli airstrikes.
The Israeli military referred Reuters to its statement from Monday, in which it said that a thorough inquiry into the incident was still underway and that it would provide further details only once the investigation is complete.
It said that a preliminary inquiry indicated that “the troops opened fire due to a perceived threat following a previous encounter in the area, and that six of the individuals killed in the incident were identified as Hamas terrorists.”
The Israeli military has provided no evidence of how it determined that the six were Hamas militants, and the Islamist faction has rejected the accusation.
The only known survivor of the incident, PRCS paramedic Munther Abed, said soldiers had opened fire on clearly marked emergency response vehicles.


Moroccans demonstrate in support of Palestinians

Updated 13 April 2025
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Moroccans demonstrate in support of Palestinians

  • Demonstrators marched through the streets of Rabat under pouring rain in response to a call from the National Action Group for Palestine

RABAT: Several thousand people demonstrated in Morocco’s capital on Sunday to show support for Palestinians in war-torn Gaza.
Under pouring rain, demonstrators marched through the streets of Rabat in response to a call from the National Action Group for Palestine, a coalition of several political organizations, including the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD).
“The Moroccans are with Gaza,” said the principal of a private school in Rabat who spoke to AFP.
The North African kingdom has officially called for “the immediate, complete and permanent halt to the Israeli war on Gaza,” but has not publicly discussed reversing the official establishment of ties with Israel in 2020 as part of the US-led Abraham Accords.
The latest protest followed another large rally held a week earlier, part of a spate of demonstrations across the country since the Israeli army resumed its offensive on March 18 against the Islamist group Hamas after a two-month truce in Gaza.


Israel denies entry to Jerusalem for Palestinian Christians marking Palm Sunday

Updated 13 April 2025
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Israel denies entry to Jerusalem for Palestinian Christians marking Palm Sunday

  • Israeli restrictions at checkpoints around Jerusalem require Palestinians to obtain security permits to access religious sites
  • Only 6,000 permits were issued this year to the West Bank’s 50,000 Christians

LONDON: Israeli authorities prevented Palestinian Christian worshippers from entering Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank to participate in Palm Sunday.

Israeli authorities imposed strict restrictions on Jerusalem over the weekend, limiting the access of Palestinian Christians to the city, the Wafa news agency reported.

Only a limited number of worshippers, primarily residents of Jerusalem and Palestinian citizens of Israel, were able to attend religious services at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Wafa added.

Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week leading up to Easter. It commemorates the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem and is observed by Eastern and Western Christian churches.

On Sunday, Patriarch Theophilos III of the Greek Orthodox Church and Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa led liturgies attended by the clergy and a small group of worshipers.

Israeli restrictions at checkpoints around Jerusalem require Palestinians — Muslim and Christian — to obtain permits to access religious sites, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Father Ibrahim Faltas, Vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land, noted that only 6,000 permits were issued this year to the West Bank’s 50,000 Christians. Permit issuance requires a security clearance and often asks that applicants download a mobile application managed by Israeli authorities.

“This is the second consecutive year that only a small number of pilgrims are able to participate in Holy Week and Easter celebrations in Jerusalem due to the ongoing conflict (in Gaza),” Faltas told Wafa.

“Churches would continue to pray for peace, justice, and freedom for all people in the Holy Land,” he added.

The Catholic Palm Sunday procession took place on Sunday afternoon, starting from Jerusalem's Church of Bethphage and ending at the Church of Saint Anne.

Christians gathered for services at the Holy Family Catholic Church and Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing Israeli attacks since late 2023. In the West Bank, Palm Sunday services were held in churches throughout Bethlehem, Jericho, Ramallah, Nablus, and Jenin.


Syrian President Sharaa heads to UAE on official visit - SANA

Updated 13 April 2025
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Syrian President Sharaa heads to UAE on official visit - SANA

CAIRO: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa will travel to the United Arab Emirates for his second visit to a Gulf state as president on Sunday, Syria's official news agency reported.
He will be accompanied by foreign minister Assad al-Shibani, who visited the UAE earlier this year.
They are expected to discuss issues of mutual interest, the SANA state news agency reported.
Sharaa visited Saudi Arabia in February on his first foreign trip since assuming the presidency in January.
His visit to the UAE comes as the new Syrian leadership attempts to strengthen ties with Arab and Western leaders following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December at the hands of Sharaa's Sunni Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

 

(With Reuters)