What’s next for the former Syrian president and his wife?

When Bashar al-Assad was overthrown on Sunday, he turned the page not only on his 24 years of presidency but on more than 50 years of his family ruling Syria.

Before Assad took office in 2000, his late father Hafez was president for three decades.

Now with the rebels led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir-al Sham (HTS) As a transitional government is formed, the future of the deposed president, his wife and three children is uncertain.

Now they are in Russia, where they have been offered asylum, but what awaits them?

Russia was a staunch ally of Assad during Syria’s civil war and has two key military bases in the Middle Eastern country.

In 2015, Russia launched an air campaign in support of Assad that turned the tide of the war in the government’s favor.

A UK-based monitoring group reported that more than 21,000 people, including 8,700 civilians, were killed in Russian military operations over the next nine years.

However, distracted by its war in Ukraine, Russia was unwilling or unable to help Assad’s government stop the rebels’ lightning offensive after it began in late November.

Hours after rebel forces took control of Damascus, Russian state media reported that Assad and his family had arrived in Moscow and would be granted asylum on “humanitarian grounds.”

But when journalists asked Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday about Assad’s whereabouts and his request for asylum, he said: “I have nothing to tell you… at the moment. Of course, such a decision (on granting asylum) cannot be taken without the head of state.

Assad’s ties to Russia, specifically Moscow, are well documented.

A 2019 investigation by the Financial Times found that Assad’s extended family had bought at least 18 luxury apartments in the Russian capital, in a bid to keep tens of millions of dollars out of Syria during the civil war.

Meanwhile, Assad’s eldest son, Hafez, is a doctoral student in the city; A local newspaper reported last week on the 22-year-old’s doctoral thesis.

Amid the weekend chaos, Russian state television reported that officials in Moscow were in talks with “the armed Syrian opposition” to secure Russian bases and diplomatic missions.

Assad is married to Asma, a dual British-Syrian national, who was born and raised in west London to Syrian parents.

She attended school and university in London before becoming an investment banker.

Asma moved to Syria full-time in 2000 and married Assad around the time he succeeded her father as president.

Dr Nesrin Alrefaai, a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), told the BBC that Asma “has a British passport, so she could return to the UK” rather than remain in Russia.

“However, the United States has imposed sanctions on her father, Dr. Fawaz al-Akhras, who is also reportedly in Russia,” he said, suggesting that Asma may want to stay in Moscow for now.

In a Mail Online report, neighbors were quoted as saying that Asma’s father, a cardiologist, and her mother, Sahar, a retired diplomat, wanted to be in Moscow to “comfort” their daughter and son-in-law.

Assad and his wife have three children: Hafez, the doctoral student, Zein and Karim.

A 2022 US State Department report to Congress said the Assad family’s net worth was between $1bn (£790m) and $2bn (£1.6bn), although he noted that it was difficult to estimate because “it is believed that their assets are distributed among themselves.” discovered and hidden in numerous accounts, real estate portfolios, corporations and offshore tax havens.

According to the report, Bashar and Asma maintained “close patronage relationships with Syria’s largest economic players, using their companies to launder money from illicit activities and funnel funds to the regime.”

He also said Asma had “influence over the economic committee managing Syria’s current economic crisis” and had made key decisions on Syria’s “food and fuel subsidies, trade and monetary issues.”

He also exerted influence over the Syrian Fund for Development, through which most foreign aid for reconstruction in regime-controlled areas was channeled.

In 2020, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleged that Asma had “become one of Syria’s most notorious war beneficiaries” with the help of her husband and family.

Another senior Trump administration official described her as the “business head of the family” and an “oligarch” who had been competing with Bashar’s cousin, Rami Makhlouf.

He is one of the richest men in Syria and the family breakup became public knowledge after he posted videos on social media complaining about his treatment.

Following the fall of the Assad dynasty, Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard said Syrians had been subjected to what she called “a horrifying catalog of human rights violations that caused untold human suffering on a large scale.”

This includes “chemical weapons attacks, barrel bombs and other war crimes, as well as murders, torture, enforced disappearances and extermination that constitute crimes against humanity.”

He called on the international community to ensure that people suspected of violating international law and other serious human rights violations are investigated and prosecuted for their crimes.

On Tuesday, the Islamist rebel leader in Syria said any senior officials in the ousted regime found involved in the torture of political prisoners would be identified.

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani also said his so-called Syrian Salvation Government would seek to repatriate officials he identified who fled to another country.

In France, Investigative judges have requested an arrest warrant for Assad. for alleged complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes, in relation to a deadly chemical attack in Syria in 2013 under the legal concept of universal jurisdiction.

Russia does not extradite its own nationals, a legal process by which someone is returned to another country or state to stand trial for an alleged crime.

Assad is unlikely to leave Russia for a country where he could be extradited to Syria or any other country that could accuse him of a crime.