Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has allowed his uncle, Rifaat al-Assad, to return to the country “to avoid imprisonment in France”, after a few decades in exile.
Syrian Al-Watan newspaper reported on Friday that Rifaat al-Assad, 84, returned to Damascus after spending nearly 30 years in Europe as a dissident.
He arrived in Damascus on Thursday, nearly a month after a Paris appeals court upheld a four-year prison sentence issued against him last year for misappropriating public funds in Syria, laundering the spoils and building a vast property portfolio in France with illegal gains.
His confiscated French real estate assets are worth an estimated 90 million euros ($106 million).
“In order to prevent his imprisonment in France… President Assad rises above what Rifaat al-Assad has said and done and allows him to return to Syria,” al-Watan said.
Firas, Rifaat al-Assad’s son, said on his Facebook page that his father’s return to Syria came following a “deal between French and Russian intelligence and the Syrian regime.”
