Exclusive: According to Lebanese officials, Bashar al-Assad’s uncle Rifaat took a plane from Beirut to Dubai

Two Lebanese security officials claimed Friday that Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of the deposed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad who is accused of war crimes in Switzerland for the brutal repression of a revolution in 1982, had just traveled from Beirut to Dubai.

According to the officials, after Assad was overthrown on December 8, “many members” of the Assad family have left Beirut for Dubai, while others have remained in Lebanon. According to the officers, Interpol has not asked Lebanese authorities to detain anyone, including Rifaat.

An email request for comment was not immediately answered by the UAE foreign ministry. According to Lebanese officials, they were unsure if Rifaat and the other members of the Assad family planned to remain in Dubai or go abroad.

Rifaat, who was in his late 80s and the brother of Assad’s father, the late president Hafez al-Assad, led special troops that killed over 10,000 people during a 1982 Muslim Brotherhood rebellion in the city of Hama. The independent monitoring organization Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said in 2022 that Hama had murdered between 30,000 and 40,000 people.

In accordance with the idea that all nations have jurisdiction over such crimes, the Attorney General’s Office of Switzerland has sent Rifaat al-Assad for prosecution on allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the murders and torture that took place in Hama. He has disclaimed all accountability.

Swiss court officials announced last month that they had recommended that the trial be postponed because of his poor health.

The 1982 Hama attack is frequently seen as the template for Bashar al-Assad’s subsequent suppression of the uprising, which started in 2011 and ultimately to his overthrow last month. Ahmed al-Sharaa, the rebel leader, made reference to it when he declared that they would “cleanse that wound that has persisted in Syria for 40 years” after the rebels took control of Hama on December 6.

Before unsuccessfully running against his brother for the presidency and fleeing into exile, Rifat al-Assad served as vice president and assisted Hafez al-Assad in taking over in a coup in 1970.

He has resided in Switzerland, Spain, and France. In 2020, a court found him guilty of using money taken from the Syrian government to purchase real estate valued at millions of euros. He went back to Syria in 2021.

According to Lebanese officials, his son Duraid’s wife and their daughter were detained on Friday as they attempted to depart Beirut airport with tampered-with expired passports.

Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi stated earlier this month that Bouthaina Shaaban, a prominent Assad aide, had flown out of Beirut after lawfully entering the country. Mawlawi said in an interview with Al Arabiya that additional Syrian officials were being hunted down for illegally entering Lebanon.

Najib Mikati, the acting prime minister, announced Monday that Lebanon will comply with an Interpol request to detain Jamil Hassan, a former Syrian intelligence officer who has been charged by American authorities with war crimes under Assad.