Rifaat al-Assad says he was given monetary gifts by the Saudi royal family
The uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been sentenced to four years in prison by a Paris court for laundering money to build a French property portfolio.
Rifaat al-Assad was convicted of embezzling Syrian state funds to buy homes and offices worth €90m (£76m).
The 82-year-old former vice-president denies any wrongdoing. His lawyers say he will appeal.
His property assets in Paris and London will be seized, the court ruled.
Who is Rifaat al-Assad?
The uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Rifat al-Assad has lived in exile since he unsuccessfully tried to seize power from his brother, Hafez, in 1984.
He is known as the “Butcher of Hama” by some Syrians because of his alleged role in the bloody suppression of an uprising in the city in 1982, but has denied any responsibility for the massacre.
After the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011 he called on his nephew to step down.
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His lawyers say his political past is irrelevant to an investigation into his financial activities.
What is the case about?
Rifaat al-Assad has been under investigation in France since 2014, when the legal NGO Sherpa, which defends victims of alleged economic crimes, filed a complaint saying the value of his property empire far exceeded his known income.
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Five years later, the French judicial authorities decided that he should stand trial for crimes allegedly committed between 1984 and 2016, including organised money laundering, aggravated tax fraud and misappropriation of Syrian state funds.
The trial opened on 9 December last year. Assad denied the charges, saying he was given gifts by the Saudi royal family.
His reported French fortune includes two Paris townhouses, a stud farm, a chateau and 7,300 square metres of office space in Lyon. Several luxury properties have already been seized by French authorities.
Assad and his family also have a portfolio of 507 properties in Spain valued at around €695m (£585m).
The properties were seized by the Spanish authorities in 2017 as part of a separate investigation into alleged money-laundering activities by Assad and 13 other people, who have again denied any wrongdoing.
This is the second trial of a member of foreign ruling family in France on charges of “ill-gotten gains”.
In October 2017, Equatorial Guinea vice president Teodorin Obiang received a three-year suspended jail term after being convicted of using public money to fund a lavish lifestyle.
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