What next for former Syrian president and his wife?

When Bashar al-Assad was toppled on Sunday, it turned the web page on not solely his 24-year presidency however on greater than 50 years of his household ruling Syria.

Earlier than Assad took workplace in 2000, his late father Hafez was president for 3 a long time.

Now, with rebels led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir-al Sham (HTS) forming a transitional authorities, the way forward for the deposed president, his spouse and their three youngsters is unsure.

They’re now in Russia, the place they’ve been supplied asylum, however what lies forward for them?

Russia was a staunch ally of Assad throughout Syria’s civil warfare and has two key army bases within the Center Japanese nation.

In 2015, Russia launched an air marketing campaign in assist of Assad that turned the tide of the warfare within the authorities’s favour.

A UK-based monitoring group reported that greater than greater than 21,000 individuals, together with 8,700 civilians, had been killed in Russian army operations over the next 9 years.

Nevertheless, distracted by its warfare in Ukraine, Russia was both unwilling or unable to assist Assad’s authorities cease the insurgent’s lightning offensive after it started in late November.

Hours after insurgent forces seized management of Damascus, it was reported by Russian state media that Assad and his household had arrived in Moscow and that they might be granted asylum on “humanitarian grounds”.

However when Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was requested about Assad’s whereabouts and asylum declare by reporters on Monday, he mentioned: “I’ve nothing to let you know… proper now. After all, such a choice [on granting asylum] can’t be made with out the top of state. It’s his resolution.”

The Assads’ ties to Russia, particularly Moscow, are well-documented.

A 2019 investigation by the Monetary Instances discovered that Assad’s prolonged household had bought not less than 18 luxurious flats within the Russian capital, in a bid to maintain tens of tens of millions of {dollars} out of Syria through the civil warfare.

In the meantime, Assad’s eldest son, Hafez, is a PhD scholar within the metropolis – with a neighborhood newspaper reporting simply final week concerning the 22-year-old’s doctoral dissertation.

Amid the chaos on the weekend, Russian state TV reported that officers in Moscow had been in talks with “the Syrian armed opposition” to safe Russia’s bases and diplomatic missions.

Assad is married to a twin British-Syrian nationwide, Asma, who was born and raised in west London to Syrian dad and mom.

She attended faculty and college in London earlier than turning into an funding banker.

Asma moved to Syria full-time in 2000 and married Assad across the time he succeeded his father as president.

Dr Nesrin Alrefaai, a visiting fellow on the London Faculty of Economics and Political Science (LSE), informed BBC Information that Asma “holds a British passport, so may return to the UK” as an alternative of remaining in Russia.

“Nevertheless, the USA [has] imposed sanctions on her father, Dr Fawaz al-Akhras, who can be reported to be in Russia,” she mentioned – suggesting Asma might need to keep put in Moscow for now.

In a report by the Mail On-line, neighbours had been quoted as saying Asma’s father, a heart specialist, and mom Sahar, a retired diplomat, wished to be in Moscow to “console” their daughter and son-in-law.

Assad and his spouse have three youngsters: Hafez, the PhD scholar, Zein and Karim.

A 2022 US State Division report back to Congress mentioned the prolonged Assad household’s internet price was between $1bn (£790m) and $2bn (£1.6bn) – although it famous that it was troublesome to estimate as a result of their belongings are “believed to be unfold out and hid in quite a few accounts, actual property portfolios, firms, and offshore tax havens”.

Based on the report, Bashar and Asma maintained “shut patronage relationships with Syria’s largest financial gamers, utilizing their firms to launder cash from illicit actions and funnel funds to the regime”.

It additionally mentioned that Asma had “affect over the financial committee that manages Syria’s ongoing financial disaster” – and had made key choices on Syria’s “meals and gasoline subsidies, commerce and foreign money points”.

She additionally exerted affect over the Syria Belief for Growth, via which most overseas support for reconstruction in regime-held areas was channelled.

In 2020, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleged that Asma had “turn into one among Syria’s most infamous warfare profiteers” with the assistance of her husband and her household.

One other senior Trump administration official described her because the “enterprise head of the household” and an “oligarch” who had been competing with Bashar’s cousin Rami Makhlouf.

He’s one among Syria’s richest males and the household rift grew to become public information after he posted movies on social media complaining about his remedy.

Following the autumn of the Assad dynasty, Amnesty Worldwide’s secretary normal Agnès Callamard mentioned Syrians had been subjected to what she known as “a horrifying catalogue of human rights violations that prompted untold human struggling on an enormous scale”.

This contains “assaults with chemical weapons, barrel bombs, and different warfare crimes, in addition to homicide, torture, enforced disappearance and extermination that quantity to crimes in opposition to humanity”.

She known as on the worldwide neighborhood to make sure that individuals suspected of breaking worldwide regulation and different critical human rights violations should be investigated and prosecuted for his or her crimes.

On Tuesday, the Islamist insurgent chief in Syria mentioned any of the ousted regime’s senior officers discovered to have been concerned in torturing political prisoners could be named.

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani additionally mentioned his so-called Syrian Salvation Authorities would search to repatriate officers it recognized who fled to a different nation.

In France, investigative judges have sought an arrest warrant for Assad for alleged complicity in crimes in opposition to humanity and warfare crimes, in reference to a lethal chemical assault in Syria in 2013 underneath the authorized idea of common jurisdiction.

Russia doesn’t extradite its personal nationals – a authorized course of whereby somebody is returned to a different nation or state to face trial for a suspected crime.

Assad is unlikely to depart Russia to go to a rustic the place he could possibly be extradited again to Syria or every other which may cost him with against the law.