Bashar al-Assad's uncle targeted by a search warrant in Switzerland

Rifaat el-Assad, the uncle of the head of state in Syria Bashar el-Assad, is actively wanted by the Swiss authorities. An international wanted notice, launched a year ago by the Swiss justice system, was made public on August 16 concerning this 85-year-old former vice-president of Syria. The Federal Criminal Court wants to hear him on his role in the repression of a protest movement in the city of Hama, in 1982, qualified as a war crime by several NGOs.

Why Switzerland? Rifaat el-Assad has never lived in this European country. But on September 13, 2013, the Trial International organization filed a complaint against Rifaat al-Assad for war crimes committed during the Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Hama in February 1982. His brother, Hafez el-Assad, was then president - before his son Bashar succeeded him in 2000. Riffat at the time led the Defense Brigades, an elite unit accused of having committed numerous abuses during the recapture of the city.

The Swiss NGO had, in a press release, called on "the Swiss authorities to quickly indict and judge" the "butcher of Hama". In 2013, the public prosecutor seized the opportunity of the Syrian's stay in a Geneva hotel to open an investigation. This single stay, explains the RTS, gave Switzerland jurisdiction to prosecute him for war crimes and, as part of the investigation, to launch an international search warrant. The Confederation, which is calling for the arrest and extradition of the uncle of the Syrian president, had kept this notice secret so as not to give the alert to the person concerned.

Rifaat el-Assad, who will be 86 on August 22, has lived in exile since 1984, following a failed putsch against his brother. He had stayed in Russia and Switzerland before settling in France. In 2021, the French justice condemns him for having fraudulently constituted in France a heritage valued at 90 million euros. The investigation showed that these assets were held by Rifaat el-Assad and his relatives via companies in Panama or Liechtenstein, then transferred to Luxembourg.

He was sentenced to four years in prison for "organized money laundering, embezzlement of Syrian public funds and aggravated tax evasion", and all the real estate concerned was confiscated. Rifaat al-Assad is also the subject of an investigation in Spain for "ill-gotten gains" involving more than 500 seized properties, equivalent to 691 million euros. But these various lawsuits remain to this day without effect. A week after his conviction, the Syrian media reported the return of Bashar al-Assad's uncle to Damascus. Rifaat had been in disgrace there since he accused the Syrian authorities, on the death of his brother in 2000, of having violated the Constitution by designating his son, Bashar al-Assad, at the head of the regime.

Before leaving France, the former Syrian leader previously returned his Legion of Honor which he had received in 1986 from President Mitterrand. This decoration, awarded for services rendered to French diplomacy in the Middle East, had caused controversy. "Mr. Rifaat el-Assad feels neglected by France, a country he had in his esteem and to which he has rendered several services," said his lawyer, Me Elie Hatem, to explain his client's gesture.