The critically ill wife of the former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has supposedly been prevented from coming back to the UK for cancer treatment because her passport has expired.
Asma al-Assad, aged 49, will not be able to return to her hometown, London, without the necessary travel documents, especially as reports suggest she is seriously ill with leukaemia and faces a survival chance of just ’50-50′.
This situation follows her father, the prominent cardiologist Fawaz Akhras, leaving his clinic in Harley Street, supposedly to care for his daughter, who sought refuge in Russia when her husband’s oppressive regime collapsed.
Speculation has been swirling in recent days that Asma is looking to divorce Assad and wants to return to Britain to continue her vital cancer treatment.
Whitehall sources, however, have confirmed that Asma – who also holds Syrian nationality – no longer possesses valid British travel documentation after her passport expired in 2020.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has also stated the Government will not allow her to return to the country as the decision ‘cannot be based solely on health reasons’.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy previously told MPs that Asma, who was born and raised in Acton, west London, is ‘not welcome here’.
Asma became Syria’s first lady in 2000 after marrying Assad, 59, in Syria in the same year he took over control of the country after the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad.
Asma al-Assad, 49, will be unable to come back to her native London without her official travel documents amid reports she is severely ill with leukemia and has only a ’50-50′ chance of survival
Asma is currently exiled in Moscow with the toppled dictator, having left behind their lives of luxury in Syria
Bashar and Asma Al-Assad are pictured meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2005
This is the house where Ms Assad grew up before she married the dictator and moved to Syria
Queen Elizabeth II receives Asma al-Assad and her husband, then Syria’s president Bashar Al-Assad, on December 17 2002, at Buckingham Palace, in London on their first visit to Britain
Critics believe she orchestrated a secretive labyrinth of committees and policies, run by her henchman, which controlled everything from access to the internet to subsided food rations.
Her empire also extended to the distribution of foreign aid – effectively she controlled who got what when.
With her role within Assad’s dictatorship growing, she was unable to maintain her early image of the liberated woman operating at the heart of power in a Muslim country.
She became one and the same with the Syrian regime’s terrible suppression of its people.
Her role in Syria’s financial policy also earned her the widespread, unenviable nickname of ‘Lady Macbeth’ from rebels and commentators alike.
In 2012, Asma was placed under UK and EU sanctions, which constituted an asset freeze and travel ban, after she was believed to have played a key role in supporting Assad throughout Syria’s civil war, which began with opposition protests in 2011 and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Asma 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.
But 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.
Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma walk in a street of Paris on December 10, 2010
Ms Assad, a dual Syrian-British national, is undergoing cancer treatment in Moscow (pic 2010)
Assad’s extended family reportedly purchased at least 18 luxury apartments in the City of Capitals complex, located in Moscow’s glittering skyscraper district
She has applied to a Russian court for permission to leave Russia for Britain which is being evaluated by the Russian authorities.
Reports 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, unconfirmed reports have stated.
After recovering from breast cancer in 2019, Asma was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, an aggressive cancer of the bone marrow and the blood, in May this year.
Last week The Telegraph reported that she had been given a ’50-50′ chance of survival and was being kept in isolation to prevent her catching an infection from others.
‘Asma is dying,’ a source close to the Akhras family told the newspaper. ‘She can’t be in the same room as anyone.’
Another source said: ‘When leukaemia comes back, it’s vicious. She has been 50-50 in the last few weeks.’
