After Arab and Turkish media broke the news that Bashar al-Assad’s wife, Asma al-Assad, 49, had asked for a divorce from the Syrian dictator in asylum, the British government was warned that she must be banned from the UK for life for fear that she would return to live in London.
The couple, who had to flee the country after Syrian rebels overthrew his regime, are currently in Moscow, where Vladimir Putin has granted them asylum and their assets have been frozen.
Turkish media previously wrote that Asma al-Asad wants to return to London because she has dual citizenship and wants to continue her cancer treatment there.
The British representatives warned that she should not be allowed to return to Britain in view of the crimes that Assad has carried out over several years, but they did not comment on whether her passport should be confiscated.
“It would be an insult to the millions of Assad’s victims if his wife were to return to a luxury lifestyle in the UK,” the UK’s shadow secretary of state for justice, Robert Jenrick, told The Telegraph, adding: “The British government sanctioned her for a reason – the family Assad is responsible for some of the worst crimes of modern times.”
Foreign Secretary David Lammy also previously said Ms Assad was ‘a sanctioned person and not welcome here in the UK’.
She also had her UK assets frozen as part of an EU sanctions program in March 2012, amid outrage over her husband’s dictatorship. British police opened a preliminary investigation in 2021 into aiding and abetting war crimes committed by the Assad regime during Syria’s 13-year civil war.
Let us recall that the Kremlin rejected the Turkish media report that Asma al-Assad, a British-born woman, wants to divorce and leave Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also dismissed a Turkish media report that suggested Assad was imprisoned in Moscow and had his assets frozen. Asked during the conference call whether the reports correspond to reality, Peskov said: “No, they do not correspond to reality.”
“Western intelligence agencies express extreme concern for the physical safety of Asma Assad, the wife of former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Life in Moscow, Russia – in a golden cage – is no longer satisfactory for Asma Assad. She wants to move to London, Britain, and return to her job as an investment banker and at the same time, if possible, remove part of her family’s capital from those sanctions,” said pro-opposition political analyst Stanislav Belkovski.
Russia is reportedly worried about the idea of the former first lady returning to Britain, but at the same time they could use it as an opportunity for espionage, according to the analyst.
“Of course, the Kremlin and Russian special services are wary of such a development. Unless they are really trying to secretly make Ms. Asma their secret agent in the UK/Euro-Atlantic world. Anything is possible,” Belkovsky added.
(Vijesti.ba)
