The Kremlin has dismissed rumours that the British-born wife of deposed Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad has filed for divorce in Russia, amid unconfirmed reports that she hopes to move back to the UK.
Asma al-Assad, 49, is currently exiled in Moscow with her husband and three children after they were given asylum by Vladimir Putin when rebels took control of Damascus in a lightning advance on December 8.
The former first lady, who left behind a life of luxury, is said to be dissatisfied with her new life under the guard of Putin‘s regime and reportedly wants to return to London, where she was born.
She has applied to a Russian court for permission to leave Russia for Britain, multiple media outlets including The Jerusalem Post reported, each citing Turkish and Arab media.
Her application is currently being evaluated by the Russian authorities, according to the accounts, which began circulating on Sunday night.
They suggested that the toppled dictator and his family are under ‘severe restrictions’ in Moscow, with Assad reportedly barred from leaving the city or engaging in political activities.
Assad’s wider family are believed to own dozens of apartments in the Russian capital and he reportedly moved to Moscow some 270 kilograms of gold and £1.6 billion with him when he fled Syria.
But his assets and money in the country are now said to have been frozen, the unconfirmed reports added.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov this morning rejected these claims and denied that the former president, a long-time ally of Putin, had been confined to Moscow.
Asked on a conference call if the reports corresponded to reality, Peskov said: ‘No they do not correspond to reality.’
There has been so far no comment on the divorce reports from the Russian authorities nor from al-Assad or his wife.
Asma, 49, was born in London and was raised in Acton by Syrian parents. She moved to Syria in 2000 and married the dictator at the age of 25.
The family was offered a safe haven by Vladimir Putin who spirited the toppled president out of Syria 8 December shortly before his country fell into the hands of rebels.
Asma and the couple’s three children were already in Russia, where reports say she has been undergoing treatment for acute myeloid leukaemia, an aggressive form of blood and bone marrow cancer.
One version is that she would prefer to be treated in the UK.
In Moscow, the Assad clan is linked to luxury properties in both the 990ft City of Capitals complex and the nearby 1,226ft Federation Tower.
His extended family own dozens of properties here and elsewhere in Moscow, but it is believed the family now resides in official Russian government accommodation.
The Assad family have strong personal ties to the Russian capital, with the ousted president’s eldest son a PhD candidate at Moscow State University.
Hafez al-Assad, who is in his 20s, defended his dissertation at MSU and became a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, Russian media reports.
The defense reportedly took place on November 29 – a week before his father’s fall from power and during the offensive of Syrian rebels on the second largest city of Syria, Aleppo.
Mrs Assad previously attended her son’s graduation in June 2023, with pictures showing her hugging him in front of MSU’s main building and meeting with university officials.
Hafez al-Assad’s work is written in Russian and is 98 pages long. It is devoted to analytical and algebraic number theory, namely issues of polynomials.
At the end of the dissertation, Al-Assad expressed gratitude ‘to the martyrs of his homeland – Syria – and first of all to the martyrs of the Syrian Arab Army.’
He also expressed gratitude to his parents, Bashar and Asma, to the rector of Moscow State University, Viktor Sadovnichy, to the university staff, and to teachers and lecturers from Syria.
The US state department estimates that the family are worth $2billion, with their wealth concealed in numerous accounts, shell companies, offshore tax havens and real estate portfolios.
The Syrian dictator’s extended family bought up at least 20 Moscow apartments worth more than £30 million in recent years.
In 2012, Wikileaks disclosed Asma Al-Assad’s private correspondence, which showed that she spent $350,000 on the palace’s furnishings and $7,000 on crystal-encrusted shoes.
Assad’s relatives the Makhloufs, headed by his uncle Mohammed Makhlouf, have long been considered Syria’s second wealthiest and most important family after his and have significant assets in Russia.
To keep tens of millions of dollars out of Syria as the country’s civil war raged, the family purchased at least 18 luxury apartments in the City of Capitals complex, located in Moscow’s glittering skyscraper district, according to the FT.
The two-towered skyscraper – which until the unveiling of London’s Shard in 2012 was Europe’s tallest building – is home to some of Russia’s wealthiest businessmen, government ministries, five-star hotels and multinational companies.
