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The wife and daughter of one of deposed Syrian president Bashar Assad The cousins of the cousins were arrested Friday at Beirut airport, where they tried to fly out with allegedly forged passports, Lebanese law and security officials said. Assad’s uncle left the day before.
Rasha Khazem, the wife of Duraid Assad – the son of former Syrian Vice President Rifaat Assad, the uncle of Bashar Assad – and her daughter, Shams, were illegally smuggled into Lebanon and were trying to fly to Egypt when they were arrested, according to five Lebanese officials familiar with the matter. They were detained by Lebanese General Security. Rifaat had flown the day before with his real passport and was not detained, the officials said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Swiss federal prosecutors in March indicted Rifaat on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for ordering murder and torture more than four decades ago.
Rifaat Assad, the brother of Bashar Assad’s father Hafez Assad, the former ruler of Syria, led the artillery unit that shelled the city of Hama, killing thousands, earning him the nickname the “Butcher of Hama.”
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Earlier this year, Rifaat Assad was indicted in Switzerland for war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with Hama.
Tens of thousands of Syrians are believed to have entered Lebanon illegally on the night of Assad’s fall earlier this month, when insurgents entered Damascus.
The Lebanese security and judicial officials said that more than 20 members of the former Syrian Army’s notorious 4th Division, military intelligence officers and others associated with Assad’s security forces were arrested earlier in Lebanon. Some of them were arrested when they tried to sell their weapons.
Lebanon’s Public Prosecutor’s Office also received an Interpol notice requesting the arrest of Jamil al-Hassan, the former director of Syrian intelligence under Assad. The Prime Minister of Lebanon, Najib Mikati, has previously said Reuters that Lebanon would cooperate with Interpol’s request to arrest al-Hassan.
& copy 2024 The Canadian Press
