Al-Assad’s uncle charged with corruption in France

PARIS (AA)- Paris prosecutors earlier this month charged Rifaat al-Assad, Syrian regime leader Bashar al-Assad’s uncle, with corruption, an anti-graft NGO said on Tuesday.

Sherpa, a Paris-based NGO that defends victims of corruption, said Rifaat al-Assad, 78, was charged on June 9, placed on probation, and ordered to remain in France except for travel to Britain for medical treatment.

“After two years of national and international investigations Mr. Rifaat al-Assad was placed under investigation for money laundering and misuse of public funds by Mr. Renaud Van Ruymbeke, a Paris investigating judge, on June 9,” Sherpa said in a statement.

Rifaat al-Assad, who was Syria's vice president in the 1980s, was forced into exile for trying to overthrow his older brother, the late Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad, the father of Bashar al-Assad.

Sherpa added that it had filed a complaint against Rifaat al-Assad in February 2014, accusing him of acquiring “billions of euros" through corruption, embezzlement of public funds, misuse of corporate assets and other crimes, noting that he had "no known professional activity".

Sherpa hailed "this advance in the judicial investigations involving one of the principal former dignitaries of the Syrian regime".