DAMASCUS // The prosecution lawyer behind the trial of Abdul Halim Khaddam, the former Syrian vice president, has said he does not expect the exiled official to be arrested by international police.
A military court in Damascus sentenced the former Baath party official to life imprisonment and hard labour after finding him guilty on a string of charges, including inciting an attack on Syria and lying to the United Nations.
The Syrian legal authorities are now due to send the verdict papers to Interpol's headquarters in France, where Mr Khaddam has been living since 2005. It will then be up to the international police organisation to decide whether or not take action against the 73-year-old.
Interpol were asked to comment on the case but refused to do so.
Among the 13 charges, Mr Khaddam was found guilty of conspiring with a foreign country to carry out aggression against Syria by giving an interview to an Israeli journalist. Having contacts with Israelis is punishable by 100 years in jail in Syria, which remains technically at war with the Jewish state.
Hossam Eddine Habash, the Syrian lawyer who brought the prosecution case, said he hoped the one-time vice president would be extradited to Damascus, but conceded there was little chance it would actually happen.
"These are criminal charges, not just some political allegation so there is no reason for Interpol not to make an arrest," he said in an interview with The National at his basement office in the Syrian capital. "Realistically though I can't see them doing it because it would be seen as a political act.
"But at least it will put pressure on Khaddam to know that one day he might be in a country where an arrest warrant will be enforced and he will have to face justice."
For almost 30 years, Mr Khaddam was a member of the Baath party's regional command, its most powerful grouping, and Syria's leading official in Lebanon. However he fell from favour after Bashar Assad, the president, took power after the death of his father, Hafez, in 2000.
In 2005, Mr Khaddam went to France, ostensibly on a working visit, but never returned. From there he publicly accused Mr Assad of threatening to kill Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, shortly before he was assassinated.
Syria's government has denied having any role in the killing, which is being investigated by a UN commission.
From his new base in France, Mr Khaddam set up the Syrian National Salvation Front, an opposition coalition that includes the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic organisation banned in Syria. He has since called for the overthrow of the Syrian regime.
Although now a self-styled democrat and opposition leader, Mr Khaddam appears to have little, if any, real support inside Syria. Instead, he is widely regarded as one of the most corrupt figures of the Baath party old-guard and his decision to flee is ascribed to fear that he was about to fall victim to an anti-corruption drive, rather than any real belief in the merits of political reform.
After the sentence was passed, Mr Khaddam insisted he was unconcerned. "This verdict does not worry me or affect my determination," he said in a written statement yesterday, insisting that it proved "the isolation of the Syrian regime, which is transforming the country into a huge prison and increasing its repression of the people."
Yet Mr Habash insisted the decision to prosecute the case had nothing to do with the Syrian authorities. "I brought the prosecution privately, I worked alone," he said. "If the government had supported me it wouldn't have taken me two and-a-half years to get this verdict."
Mr Habash - a chain-smoking lawyer who spent two years as a political prisoner in Syria - stressed he was independent from the Baath party and had even, at one point, approached the Syrian government for assistance in the trial.
"They didn't want anything to do with it. I think they would have preferred it if the whole thing was just forgotten."
There was a deeply personal motivation behind Mr Habash's pursuit of the former Syrian vice president through the courts. "I was arrested in 2004 and I hold Khaddam responsible for that," he said.
Charged with "undermining national unity", Mr Habash spent two years in prison before a judge ruled there was no case to answer and freed him.
"Khaddam tried to have me convicted but failed," he explained, flashing a 'V' for victory sign with his fingers.
Because Mr Khaddam refused to attend the court sessions, he was tried in absentia without a legal defence team. Mr Habash dismissed claims the trial was therefore unfair.
"If he is extradited to Syria a full retrial would be held, and Khaddam would get a defence," he said.
Umran Zaubie, another Syrian lawyer and a Baath party member, said he had been surprised at the lack of government interference.
"It's probably because it's a sensitive case. They didn't want to get accused of making it political," he said.
The verdict against Mr Khaddam was delivered on Aug 17 but took almost two weeks to come to light, just days before the planned visit to Damascus of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, on Wednesday.
Mr Habash said the timing was a coincidence and the result of slow court bureaucracy, not an effort to force the matter on to the agenda at the presidential talks. "This won't be discussed, I'm sure, it's got nothing to do with the visit," he said.
@Email:psands@thenational.ae
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
- The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
- The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
Match info
Australia 580
Pakistan 240 and 335
Result: Australia win by an innings and five runs
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Tuesday's fixtures
Kyrgyzstan v Qatar, 5.45pm
Results
2pm: Maiden (TB) Dh60,000 (Dirt) 1,200m, Winner: Mouheeb, Tom Marquand (jockey), Nicholas Bachalard (trainer)
2.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh68,000 (D) 1,200m, Winner: Honourable Justice, Royston Ffrench, Salem bin Ghadayer
3pm: Handicap (TB) Dh84,000 (D) 1,200m, Winner: Dahawi, Antonio Fresu, Musabah Al Muhairi
3.30pm: Conditions (TB) Dh100,000 (D) 1,200m, Winner: Dark Silver, Fernando Jara, Ahmad bin Harmash
4pm: Maiden (TB) Dh60,000 (D) 1,600m, Winner: Dark Of Night. Antonio Fresu, Al Muhairi.
4.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh68,000 (D) 1,600m, Winner: Habah, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson
The specs: 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk
Price, base: Dh399,999
Engine: Supercharged 6.2-litre V8
Gearbox: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 707hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque: 875Nm @ 4,800rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 16.8L / 100km (estimate)
SPECS
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%202-litre%20direct%20injection%20turbo%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%207-speed%20automatic%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%20261hp%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%20400Nm%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%20From%20Dh134%2C999%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
