Assad's Uncle Investigated Over £64m Fortune

The uncle of Syrian President Bashar al Assad is being investigated by French authorities for accumulating a 90 million euro (£64m) fortune despite fleeing Syria penniless in 1984.

Rifaat al Assad went into exile in Europe after staging a failed coup against his brother Hafez al Assad, who was Syria's president at the time and is also Bashar's father.

French investigators told Agence France-Presse that Rifaat claimed he left Syria with "nothing" as he always donated his salary to Syria's poor.

Rifaat, 77, reportedly told investigators: "It was (then French president) Francois Mitterrand who asked me to come to France... he was very kind."

He has since spent the last 30 years moving between extravagant homes in Paris, London and Marbella, and his property portfolio includes a stud farm, apartment blocks and two mansions.

The inquiry into the former Syrian vice president's finances was triggered by Sherpa, an activist group representing the victims of financial crime, which claims his fortune was stolen during his time at the heart of the Syrian regime.

But Rifaat's family claims their finances are transparent and the wealth has been amassed from Saudi supporters, including from former king Abdullah with whom Rifaat shared a love of horse racing.

"The stud farm was given to my father by prince (later king) Abdullah of Saudi Arabia," Rifaat's 43-year-old son, Soumar al Assad, told investigators earlier this year.

Other members of the family have claimed Saudi backers have supported them in exile.

However, a leading French academic and expert on Syria finds these claims hard to believe.

"Saudi Arabia has no interest in supporting Rifaat, who doesn't represent anything," Fabrice Balanche, of CNRS University in Lyons, told investigators.

Rifaat's lawyer Benjamin Grundler said his client "lives principally from the sale of apartments... and from the regular help of Saudi Arabia. It is not Syrian money".

Before leaving Syrai, Rifaat commanded the country's notorious internal security forces in the 1970s and early 1980s.

They carried out the bloody Hama massacre in 1982, which crushed an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood, killing between 10,000 and 25,000 civilians in the process, it is claimed.

Rifaat has always denied having a leading role in the massacre.