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Two of Assad’s relatives arrested as they tried to fly out of Lebanon, officials say.
Wife, daughter of Duraid al-Assad, ex-president’s cousin and son of ‘Butcher of Hama’ Rifaat, said to have been smuggled into Lebanon and sought to reach Egypt with fake documents.
The wife and daughter of one of deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s cousins were arrested Friday at the Beirut airport, where they attempted to fly out with allegedly forged passports, Lebanese judicial and security officials said. Assad’s uncle departed the day before.
Rasha Khazem and her daughter, Shams, were smuggled illegally into Lebanon and were trying to fly to Egypt when they were arrested, according to five Lebanese officials familiar with the case. They were being detained by Lebanese General Security.
Khazem is married to Duraid al-Assad, whose father, Rifaat al-Assad, is the younger brother and former vice president of the late Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father and predecessor.
Rifaat al-Assad, 87, had flown out of Lebanon on Thursday using his real passport, and was not stopped, the Lebanese officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
Two Lebanese security officials had told Reuters on Friday that Rifaat al-Assad had fled to Dubai.
Swiss federal prosecutors had in March indicted Rifaat al-Assad on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for allegedly ordering murder and torture more than four decades ago, when he had led the artillery unit that shelled the city of Hama and killed thousands, earning him the nickname the “Butcher of Hama.”
Tens of thousands of Syrians are believed to have entered Lebanon illegally on the night of December 8, when the Assads’ 50-year regime was toppled as insurgent forces entered Damascus.
Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah reportedly helped smuggle some Assad allies out of Lebanon and put them up in high-end Beirut hotels. The report, from a Lebanese newspaper opposed to Hezbollah, sparked uproar among politicians in Lebanon, which Syria had occupied for some three decades until 2005.
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 affiliated with Assad’s security forces were arrested earlier in Lebanon. Some of them were arrested when they attempted to sell their weapons.
Lebanon’s public prosecution office also received an Interpol notice requesting the arrest of Jamil al-Hassan, the former director of Syrian intelligence under Assad. Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati previously told Reuters that Lebanon would cooperate with the Interpol request to arrest al-Hassan.