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The Syrian President’s Uncle, a Paris Manor and a Fraud Trial

The Syrian President’s Uncle, a Paris Manor and a Fraud Trial

(Bloomberg) -- Rifaat al-Assad, the exiled uncle of the Syrian president, faces a French trial over how he’s been able to amass real estate worth 90 million euros ($100 million), including a Paris manor and a castle, after departing Syria penniless more than three decades ago.

French investigators will accuse him of embezzling Syrian state funds at a trial that starts Monday in Paris. They have seized his property in France as well as a 20 million-pound ($26 million) house in the U.K.

Rifaat al-Assad claims he regularly received generous donations from two allies, Saudi Kings Fahd and Abdallah, according to the indictment. His defense team was even able to unearth paperwork showing he cashed in a $10 million check from Abdallah on a Geneva account in July 1984.

In addition to the real estate, “he also had to fund his expensive lifestyle, that of his wives, his many children and the 200 people who left Syria with him,” the lead investigator wrote in the indictment. “It’s not $10 million that could have funded all of that but rather hundreds of millions of dollars.”

It’s the second trial in France over ill-gotten assets involving the family of a foreign leader. Two years ago, the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president was found guilty by Paris judges of using corrupt money to buy assets in France ranging from a mansion worth more than 100 million euros near the Champs-Elysees in Paris to a fleet of super-cars, including a Bugatti Veyron. He appealed and his retrial begins also this week.

A lawyer for Rifaat said the prosecution’s requests are simply impossible to comply with.

“We’re being asked to provide paperwork from more than three decades ago,” said Benjamin Grundler. “No bank is obliged to keep records so long. As a consequence, no one, including investigators, can access those documents, which simply don’t exist anymore.”

The Syrian embassy in Paris didn’t return messages seeking comment.

Rifaat won’t be in the courtroom for his Paris trial due to medical reasons. The 82-year-old began amassing property in France in the 1980s.

In 1984, he was pushed into exile after a failed attempt to oust his older brother Hafez al-Assad from power. The two brothers had gone from being allies to rivals with Rifaat helping his brother become president in a 1970 coup and then gathering influence as head of the elite Defense Brigades troops.

According to Abdel Halim Khaddam, a former foreign affairs minister, a pact was sealed between the two brothers for the younger one to bow out. Hafez allegedly agreed to give Rifaat $300 million taken from public funds over his exile.

French investigators believe Khaddam’s statement is backed up by documentation on Syria’s accounts. They suspect Rifaat was paid with state money that came from a spectacular increase in the president’s expenses in 1984 and a rise in exports from Libya.

Rifaat’s defense team dismisses the allegation and says it stems from old political feuds.

“Khaddam is an opponent of Rifaat al-Assad and clearly has an ax to grind,” Grundler, Pierre Cornut-Gentille, François Artuphel and Julien Visconti said in a statement ahead of the trial.

Hafez al-Assad died in 2000 and was succeeded by his son, Bashar al-Assad.

In court, Rifaat al-Assad will square off with prosecutors from the Parquet National Financier. The trial is set to last until Dec. 18 with a ruling expected a few months later.

Rifaat is also under investigation in Spain. After being tipped off by France, Spanish enforcers opened their own probe and suspect foul play in the acquisition of more than 500 properties worth nearly 700 million euros.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gaspard Sebag in Paris at gsebag@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Riad Hamade

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