Even more unusually, the mansion passed through the hands of a widowed pensioner who lived in a Communist-era public housing block in southwest Bucharest. Leana Pielmus, then 58, bought it on September 10 for 3.5 million euros (the equivalent of US$5 million). The average pension in Romania at the time was 162 euros per month.

Pielmus sold it a week later to the Syrian Foreign Ministry for 4.46 million euros (US$6.6 million), according to sales contracts obtained by journalists from OCCRP partners RISE Project and SIRAJ.

The deal, which has never been reported in the mainstream media, was brokered by her son-in-law, Ammar Aoun, a dentist who counts the Syrian ambassador to Romania among his friends.

“The person who bought and sold the property to the Syrian government is a relative of a close friend of the ambassador,” said Romania-based Syrian dissident Mohamad Rifai, also a dentist.

“She did not have millions sitting in her bank account, she is not a known real estate agent, and a huge amount of money entered and left her bank account overnight.”

In the aftermath of Bashar al-Assad’s brutal suppression of anti-government protests in Damascus in March 2011, the European Union imposed sanctions on the Syrian strongman and his close associates, which are still in place. Romania is one of a few EU countries that have nevertheless maintained diplomatic relations with the Syrian regime throughout the subsequent civil war.

Dissidents like Rifai argue that Bucharest has become a European hub for the illicit financial networks of Assad and his wealthy cousin, Rami Makhlouf, who is married to the daughter of the Syrian ambassador.

That ambassador, Walid Othman, is among Assad’s closest associates. He has been at his diplomatic post in Romania for 13 years, despite having blown past the mandatory retirement age of 65. In 2012, Reuters quoted a former Syrian oil minister as saying that Othman was “one of the people making dealings on behalf of the Assad family,” although he could not provide concrete proof for the claim.

The dentist who brokered the embassy deal, Ammar Aoun, told OCCRP member center RISE Project that he was responsible for the purchase made by his pensioner mother-in-law — as well as the building’s immediate sale to the Syrian Embassy at a nearly 30-percent markup.

“I did everything,” he said. “Why is a Romanian citizen questioning what is happening in the Syrian Embassy?”

The dentist declined to comment on his million-dollar profit and did not say why his mother-in-law was on the paperwork. But he admitted that he had received much more than that from the Syrian Embassy over the years.

“I cashed 10 million, not a million, and what, am I not allowed? I received 10 million, I received between 10 and 15 million. They gave me a commission.”

Hours after the interview, Aoun texted the reporter again.

“Good evening, I am sorry for the tone of the discussion we had today. I consider the subject old, legal and closed. Good luck in your effort to shed light on this matter.”

Ambassador Othman and the Syrian Foreign Ministry declined to say whether the deal followed public procurement rules or if the Syrian government investigated the potential conflict of interest.

Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the question of how the Syrian Embassy was purchased was outside its purview. But Camelia Bogdan, a Romanian judge with expertise in money laundering, said the transaction raised red flags that should have been reported to authorities.

“There are obviously red flags of money laundering through [the] real estate system (e.g., lack of any financial justification, payments through a proxy who could not justify the legal origins of the funds) that should have been addressed by the notary who legalized the fraudulent scheme through an enhanced due diligence in accordance with AML obligations,” she wrote to reporters.

“In this case, the notary had the duty to identify the beneficial owner and submit a suspicious transaction report to the FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit).”

The Dentist and the Diaspora

Romania and Syria have had close diplomatic ties since the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. The former communist dictator had a warm relationship with Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron grip for nearly three decades.

The Syrian army relied partially on Romanian weapons to equip its soldiers. Damascus was also a major importer of livestock, timber, and other commodities from Romania before the EU imposed sanctions on Syria in 2011.

Hundreds of Syrians arrived in Romania in the 1980s, when Ceaușescu gave out scholarships to students from the socialist state. Many stayed behind, working as doctors and engineers or setting up businesses.

Ammar Aoun was among them. He studied dentistry in Bucharest and married a Romanian woman with whom he now runs a dental clinic.

“Those who came before 1990 were mostly students in medicine, dentistry, or studied at the polytechnic,” said an NGO worker in Bucharest who spent years assisting Syrian and other immigrant communities. She spoke on condition of anonymity because her workplace forbids employees from speaking to the press.

“They stayed here, received Romanian citizenship, and became businessmen with high influences. They own hotel chains, football teams, restaurants.”

All that changed in 2011, when the 5,000-strong Syrian-Romanian community was riven by the outbreak of civil war.

“Overnight, some Syrians became enemies of the regime,” the aid worker said.

Others, like Aoun, doubled down on their support for Assad’s government, joining with another businessman to donate an SUV to the embassy. His Facebook profile is full of quotes supporting the Assad regime — and his friend the ambassador.

“The sun of a beautiful day rises … and nothing makes you happier than love and loyalty!!” he wrote in one typical post in late September. “A good morning full of loyalty and love to Syria, a country of Glory, and His Excellency Dr. Walid Othman.”

Dangerous Advice

A month after Aoun brokered the embassy deal, he became embroiled in a money laundering case involving another Syrian-Romanian businessman, Yakhni Abdulkader.

The affair began when Abdulkader’s wife set off to Turkey with $769,000 tucked away in her travel bag, according to court documents.

Abdulkader called Aoun and asked for help evading customs officers at Bucharest Airport. Aoun told Abdulkader he would check whether “the person he knows is there,” according to prosecution documents.

But the money was confiscated, and Abdulkader was tried and convicted for organized crime and money laundering. Prosecutors accused him of using his wife, among other couriers, to launder money for a criminal ring that operated in Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon. Abdulkader laundered up to $3.5 million between September 2009 and January 2010, according to court records.

Aoun was called as a witness in the case, but has insisted that his only role was recommending that Abdulkader contact a lawyer.

Aoun is also Facebook friends with Haytham A. Asaad, a Syrian-Romanian businessman who holds shares in a company that bought land inside a Romanian military base used by NATO soldiers in a deal exposed by OCCRP and RISE Project in 2018. Ambassador Othman’s son was that company’s main shareholder.

“Bone of the Regime’s Neck”

Othman was born in 1953 in a mountainous village overlooking the coastal town of Latakia, the seat of the ruling Assad family.

And like the Assads, Othman is part of the powerful Alawite minority, which has dominated Syrian politics since Hafez al-Assad seized power in 1971.

He began his career as a member of Syria’s ruling Baath Party, tasked with recruiting young people to join. In the 1990s he served as governor of the city of Dara’a, on Syria’s southern border with Jordan. His daughter, Razan, married Rami Makhlouf, the cousin of Bashar Al-Assad, cementing the links between the two families.

Makhlouf, a businessman who controlled more than 60 percent of the Syrian economy before the war broke out in 2011, is sanctioned by the European Union and the United States for his role in government corruption and bankrolling the Assad regime. Razan Othman is also under sanctions, although her father is not.

In 2007, Assad named Othman Syria’s ambassador to Romania. In turn, Othman has remained the president’s staunch supporter, even siding with him when he fell out with Makhlouf earlier this year.

“Walid Othman is among a group of ambassadors who are very close to the ruling family,” said Saker Elmelhem, a former Syrian ambassador to Chile who quit in 2013 in protest of what he saw as increasing sectarianism and corruption within the Foreign Ministry.

Elmelhem and another senior ex-diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, both described Othman and a handful of other envoys in Assad’s inner circle as “the bone of the regime’s neck.”

“This group operates above Syrian laws and regulations,” said Elmelhem. “Their terms get extended and they can sell and buy all of Syria.”

These envoys mostly hail from leading Alawite families who have important connections within Syria’s pervasive security apparatus — the country’s real power brokers.

“Even President Assad does not dare come close to them,” Elmelhem said. “This context helps explain the purchase of the embassy, and how Othman has maintained his post over the years in Romania.”

Under Syrian law, Othman should have retired two years ago, when he hit 65. But Assad has renewed his posting nonetheless, perhaps because nominating a new envoy might stir up trouble for Romania, which would have to approve the appointment and thus actively confirm its accord with Syria.

While many European states expelled Syria’s ambassadors after the Assad regime’s violent crackdown on anti-government protesters in 2011, Romania did not. Instead, both countries have increased security around the embassy at 47 Paris Street, which has become the site of regular protests by local Syrians who oppose Assad.

Dr. Rifai, the dissident, said the embassy building felt to him like a symbol of corruption and wasta — the Arabic word for insider connections.

“We Syrians who belong to humanity … feel it is an embassy that does not provide us with any form of protection,” he said.

The post How a Syrian Ambassador’s Friend Made a Million Selling Him an Embassy appeared first on SIRAJ.

Abu-Mahmoud used to own 4 houses in the neighborhood, in which he lived with his sons, before three of them left Syria because of war, while Abu-Mahmoud remained there with his daughter.

The evacuation of Abu-Mahmoud’s house was executed under “Decree 66” that aimed to construct an integrated urban area. Although the decree had been passed 7 years ago, Abu-Mahmoud’s sons didn’t receive alternative housing. The decree stipulates providing “alternative housing” in 4 years from its issuance in 2012, but the property of Abu-Mahmoud’s sons was confiscated; as they were abroad and could not prove the house ownership upon evacuation.

Abou Mahmoud’s family and another 150 thousand residents in Mazzeh and Kafr Soussa are homeless until now, waiting for the “alternative housing”, while most departed families did not receive proper leases or compensation to secure a shelter during the determined period for executing the decree.

The issue became more complicated when Damascus Governorate required high prices for delivering “alternative housing” which is not yet available, while evicted families are going through difficult economic conditions, which makes it impossible for them to pay such high prices, according to this report.

Over 6 months, the report reveals that Damascus Governorate violates some clauses of “Decree 66”, most significantly is the non-commitment to the determined term set to provide residents the “alternative housing”, for high prices, in addition to the low, insufficient and late lease allowance that should have been given to evicted families to secure a residence until they can receive their alternative houses from the governorate.

An alternative housing is a house a resident receives instead of their informal one located in the area stated in the decree. Alternative housing should have been available within 4 years of the issuance of the decree, but the related paragraph in Law no. 10 has been amended to stipulate delivering the alternative housing after 4 years from evacuating the house.

Regulatory instructions for alternative housing for entitled beneficiaries were issued only in 2015 (three years after the decree was issued), in decree no. 112 issued by the Minister of Housing, which left the alternative housing entitled beneficiaries homeless during all this time.

Also the residents that were absent during evaluating the neighborhood houses have lost their entitlements and couldn’t register their houses to receive lease allowances and alternative housing. This was confirmed by Gomaa Al-Hallaq, law expert, and 3 other residents.

No Ownership Rights

“Four eviction notices (one notice for each house) were issued, Damascus Governorate has checked my family’s house in the presence of my father, and was aware the house is inhabited. When the second check was to be conducted, my father and brother were visiting Turkey, but my sister was there in the house, the check committee photographed the house, but labeled it in papers as “closed house”, meaning they didn’t acknowledge our ownership of the house” says Mahmoud, Abu Mahmoud’s elder son who lives in Turkey, describing what happened as “uprooting out of the district”.

Four Eviction Notices (exclusive)

“We notified property owners of the checking and registration processes. 8200 people have declared their entitlement. We, in cooperation with honest and just judges, have matched the entitlements with real estate’s authorities, and it resulted in registering the properties of 5500 people, while ownership could not be proven for the other 2700,” said Jamal Al-Youssef, Decree 66 former enforcer.

Verifying the non-entitlement of those people, Ghaleb Eniz, member of Damascus Governorate Council, says “Damascus Governorate, when Governor Beshr Al-Sabban was in position, instructed properties owners, who sought to register their possession, to submit a travel/ departure statement to confirm their presence in the country, in order to ban those citizens abroad from registering their properties and consequently not proving their ownership of houses inside the integrated urban area, knowing that this procedure is not stated in decree no. 112 issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, yet it was attached to Decree 66 to regulate providing the alternative housing. Therefore, around 2700 families were deprived of alternative housing; most of them were out of the state and could not submit the required statement proving their presence in the country”.

Decision 112 (exclusive)

Clause “D” of the decision states that “alternative housing beneficiary shall submit proved entitlement of their house over the period from the decree issuance date until evacuation date” but didn’t refer to people who are out of the country.

Eniz noted that some cases were registered as closed houses (not possessed), although owners were present inside Syria, but when conducting the checking process, they were not present, for any reason. When appeals were allowed, only 100 people out of two thousand objectors were registered entitled.

Jamal Al-Youssef, former enforcer of Decree 66, verifies the late conduction due to “the State’s conditions”; as work was not allowed upon issuing the decree. When it was allowed to enter Khalaf Al-Razi district in 2013, work commenced.

According to Jamal Al-Youssef, the number of alternative housing entitlements reached 5500 out of 6500 citizens who applied, indicating that 1000 citizens were deprived from the alternative housing.

“We announced receiving appeals, 550 objectors applied, and a committee was formed to discover the lack of some documents like a proof of the citizen’s presence inside the country and citizen’s compliance to army reserve admission. Out of 550 appeals, only 119 were examined after submitting the required documents that prove alternative housing entitlement” said Al-Youssef.

Alternative Housing or Expropriation?

Although more than 3 years have passed, Abu-Yasser and his 5 children, who evicted their home at Khalaf al-Razi region, on May 16, 2015, are still waiting for the alternative housing Abu-Yasser had to sell more than half his shares in the project, about 37 million Syrian liras (worth 37’000 USD) in Marsoum region, to buy a house in Reef Dimashq, because the “rent allowance” which is given to him by the Damascus governorate.

Abu-Yasser says, “I couldn’t adapt to life in the countryside, I couldn’t move my factory from Khalaf al-Razi region to the new place I live in, due to the fast eviction, which left me unemployed”.

Abu-Yasser described what happened as expropriation, as he was forced to sell more than half his shares in the project, move to Reef Dimashq and lose his source of income. He explained that Damascus governorate “cut off the power and water supply in his region, to force people to move out”.

Abu-Yasser received the first rent allowance in November 2018 (2 years after they were evicted) and the second time was 5 months later. “Had I been a tenant, I and my family would have been homeless, due to the delay of the rent allowance cheques”. His rent allowance was estimated by 652’000 liras per year (about 650 USD), while he has not yet received the third rent allowance due to the delay that happened.

Rent allowance is paid every year in the form of monthly bills of 50’000 liras each. Rents in Damascus start from 100’000 liras, according to a broker in the city.

Changing Housing Locations

Damascus governorate changed alternative housing location from the first organizational area (Maruta City) to the second, (Basilia City), according to the statement of Bilal Na’al, board member of “Damascus Holding” which participates in the project, during the ordinary session of Damascus municipality on October 11, 2019, which means residence will be moved from an economically active region to a place far from the city center.

Legal expert Jum’a Hallaq said, “The organizational plan was changed more than once, although the alternative housing buildings should be within the first area (Maruta City), according to decree no. 66, articles 19 and 20”. So the alternative housing will not be delivered until the second (Basilia City), which is not yet ready, is finished. Until now, the organizational plans have not been set, and the inhabitants of the area have not been evicted, which means delivering alternative housing units will further be delayed.

Estimation Committees Waste Owners’ Rights

Article 7 of the decree no. 66 states that committees of legal experts and real estate experts are to be formed to estimate the value of the rent allowance and the areas of the ‘prospect’ alternative housing units.

The committee consists of a judge, appointed by the Minister of Justice, who acts as the head of the committee, two real estate evaluation experts, appointed by the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, in addition to two experts who represent the owners”.

But these committees failed to evaluate many properties accurately, and wasted the owners’ rights, according to the statements of some owners who think their properties were “underestimated”.

Fahd, 30 years, was one of the residents of Khalaf al-Razi, said, “The committee measured the area of his house, but changed its description, like the type of bricks and marble, thus depreciating its value. When he objected, the architect in charge said, “All is the same to us”.

Ghalib Onayz thinks that the committees that carry out the evaluation and documentation are not infallible, they have made mistakes that have not been corrected. Evaluation and description records were not published, as in case they were published citizens would be able to object to them and demand his rights.

Reporters tried to know the reason why the evaluation and description records were not published, through asking the directorate responsible for executing decree 66, which keeps the records, but a source in the directorate refused to comment.

The bigger problem was when the Damascus governorate employees registered Um-Khaled’s house in the name of another woman, who has nothing to do with the house.

Um-Khaled said, “It is my property, but I had hosted one of my friends who was displaced from Jobar and when the employee came from the governorate, his name was Mudar, he asked my friend: Who are you? She said: A guest from Jobar. Yet he took her ID and her husband’s ID, and registered their data, and later it turned out that my own house was registered in my friend’s name in front of my eyes”.

Um-Khaled filed a complaint, but to no avail, because the reassessment process needs a court order, as the responsible committee is judicial, which makes the correction difficult. She said, “I lost my house in a moment due to this injustice”.

Jamal al-Yusuf, the director of execution of decree no. 66, replied that “the committees did not commit any mistakes, and those who complained could not produce any authentic document to prove their claims,” adding that “the work is done through an automated institutional mentality”.

Incorrect evictions

The unpleasant surprise for Hala (56 years) and her family was when they got evicted from their 3 storey home on March 27, 2017.

She said that security elements summoned her and told her that they should evict their home within 15 days, although other home owners had received notice months before her without executing the eviction. She saw the eviction executed equally to all the residents of the region.

Hala had to evict her home and could not even sell all her furniture, because whe was forced to evict within 15 days without prior notice.

Six other residents of the same area narrated stories similar to Hala’s, they said evictions were not implemented correctly, and that there was violence and ill-treatment of civilians.

Legal expert Jum’a Hallaq explained that Damascus governorate totally evicted the area of Khalaf al-Razi in 2017, in a clear violation to article 40 of the decree, which states: “Damascus governorate shall be responsible for delivering the land of the divisions empty to the owners within a maximum of 90 days from the date they obtained the construction permits, as the governorate has evicted the area before issuing the permits.” This means that issuing construction permits should take place before the eviction process.

By searching the governorate’s archives, reporters discovered that the first eviction notice was issued in September 2015, while the first construction permit was issued in 2019.

Hala narrated the stories of some of the residents of the area who were evicted during the school year, which resulted in interrupting the educational process for most of the region’s children.

Within one week Fahd was evicted from his home, in Khalaf al-Razi, with his furniture, so he had to stay homeless for two months, looking for a place for his family to stay.

Fahd said, “I was living on my own property which I had built on my father’s land. It was 90 square meters, and I didn’t have to pay rent. Now I’m living in a single room in an old house in Sheikh Sa’d district, with 5 members of my family”.

However, despite this suffering, Fahd still hopes to receive alternative housing―even after a while―because his house’s area is 90 square meters, and the roofed area in his house is less than 40 square meters. Hence, he does not get a separate house in the new project, according to article no. 3 of resolution 112. And if more than one family lives in the apartment, it gets a new one with the same exact area of the old house.

The legal expert, Jomaa Al Hallaq, believes that this article prompted the public to sell their shares, to be able to carry on. Explaining that these people won’t be able to buy anything in the Decree stated area.

Alternative Housing that is Beyond its Residents’ Affordability

According to Article 45 of Decree 66, the duration set for providing alternative housing was four years after the decree was issued in 2012, which means that alternative housing is supposed to be ready by the year 2016.

But when Damascus failed to secure alternative housing during such a period, the well-known “Law No.10” stated in article no. 25 that the period of alternative housing delivery is four years from the date of home evacuation, instead of 4 years from the date of the issuance of Decree 66.

Taking into consideration the presence of owners who evacuated their homes in 2015, the amendment that was stipulated in Law No. 10 was also not complied with, as they evacuated their homes 5 years ago, and were supposed to have received their alternative apartments within 2019.

Jamal Al Youssef estimates the square meter’s price of an apartment in the alternative housing project, between 270 and 300 thousand SYP (300 USD) as a real cost for construction only, excluding the value of land, street & lighting expenses. Where payments are supposed to be made in installments over the span of 25 years, with interest rate of 10%, provided that the first installment payment should be covering 10% of the property’s value according to resolution 112.

Mr. Al Youssef considers this fair, “As those living in illegal or informal buildings, weren’t paying any fees or taxes, and the state was offering them free services, that’s why it is time for things to change.”

He believes that citizens benefited from the project, once the entitlement of the alternative housing is allocated, they can sell it and gain profits, while he urged those who cannot pay for alternative housing, to “find a way” either by making a good use of their resources and assets, or by taking loans, noting that Damascus cannot issue a law that suits everyone’s circumstances.

In economic terms, 30 million SYP―about 30,000 USD―is the price of a 100-square-meter home, in addition to 10% interest. Hence, the price becomes 33.5 million SYP. A price that those entitled to alternative housing can’t manage to afford, which Ghalib Unaiz considers a way “that opens the door in front of the major real estate traders.”

Futile Rental Allowances

Article 44, Decree 66, stipulates that those who aren’t entitled to alternative housing be granted rental compensation for two years. In addition to compensating those who are entitled to alternative housing, with an annual rent until they receive their housing, and the payment is to be made within one month from the date of notification of the evacuation notice.

Today, Hala pays a rent of 125,000 SYP for a home made up of two small rooms in Damascus, while her house rent allowance was estimated at 750,000 SYP. She said that: “This rental allowance doesn’t cover half of what I pay, especially given the high rent prices, and the difficulty of finding a house to rent due to the high demand in some regions,” the thing that forced her to sell part of her shares in the regulated area to cover her rental expenses.

On the other hand, Fahd pays 75,000 SYP per month for one room with no utilities, and his rent allowance is not enough. “However, Damascus is still late in paying rent allowances and doesn’t give us the money on its due date.” He said.

“The poor value of the rental allowance prompted the public to sell their shares in the project, and to date, the rental allowance isn’t paid on time in addition to the postponement of the date of demolition related to the payment of the rental allowance.” Jomaa Al Hallaq said.

However those who aren’t entitled to alternative housing are about 2500 families out of almost 8500. These families are granted a rental allowance for two years only from the date of evacuation while their fate remains unknown after that period.

Ghalib Unaiz, a member of Damascus Governorate Council, Ghalib Eneiz, believes it’s “Unfair to these families,” and says: “2,500 families used to be stable and live peacefully, and now they became homeless.” Moreover, he explained: “The state is obligated, under the constitution, to provide housing for its citizens.”

Um Muhammad has been living for about 50 years in Khalaf Al Razi (Old Rent), she couldn’t prove that she’s a renter because she didn’t have the old tenancy agreement which led to depriving her of alternative housing and rent allowance. Although she objected to the Decree 66 Implementation Directorate three times, she did not get any help, and the Directorate’s staff informed her that it’s all her fault and she must return to the court to object.

Despite the fact that renters, who don’t own lands and have been living in the region before the year 2000, get 30% of the residential real estate shares and 40% of the commercial real estate shares, according to article no. (44) of Decree no. (66).

Jamal Al Youssef considers the rent allowance a “state contribution” to help citizens rent a house until alternative housing is ready, and admits that there’s been a delay in paying the entitlement of the alternative housing―because of the “general situation”―adding that the governorate paid almost 8 billion SYP in compensation for the rent allowance.

Mr. Al Youssef confirms that the rent allowance is not enough, and many objections were registered against it, but the specification of the rental allowance was conducted by judicial committees and issued with a final judicial decision. It can only be amended by amending the law, the thing that requires another judicial decision.

Mr. Al Youssef expects that the alternative housing will be ready within a year and a half from now. “We cannot continue to pay rent allowances, it’s a heavy burden for us” He said.

A Stumbled Beginning for Reconstruction

Decree no. (66) and its implementation gaps represented a ‘stumbled beginning’ for the reconstruction of Syria, which became an international media sensation. And despite the passage of 8 years since the decree was issued, no actual reconstruction operation has been carried out so far. While the residents of the area mentioned in the decree have remained homeless since their evacuation.

The project consists of two regulated areas, the first “Marota City”―which means (sovereignty) in Aramaic―and the second “Basilia City”, which means (Paradise). Marota City covers an area of 2 million and 149 thousand square meters in Khalaf Al Razi region, it will include 12,000 apartments distributed among 168 towers, ranging between 11 and 22 floors each. While Basilia City covers an area of 9 million square meters on the southern ring-road between al-Qadam and Yarmouk Camp. It will include 4,000 apartments, according to the data provided by the companies participating in the implementation of the regulated area.

Both, Marota and Basilia, were presented as Syria’s first “three dimensional” smart cities with luxurious infrastructures, automated services, online traffic control, educational, cultural, entertainment and tourism centers, to attract investors to Syria and create a new “Dubai” in Damascus.

However, this luxury didn’t do Mahmoud any good when his father died due to being forced to evacuate the house, and he lost his right to its ownership. Moreover, such luxury meant nothing to hundreds of families who were displaced from their homes, without having anything to rely on but rental allowances that are not sufficient to rent a small room in Damascus. They were left waiting for an open date for their return to their new houses.

The Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism (SIRAJ)

The post “Fake houses”: Decree 66 Breaches its Promises and Expels Syrian families appeared first on SIRAJ.

When Syria’s national football association handed a marketing deal to a Damascus start-up in 2019, the terms looked very favorable for the little-known firm.

The company, Afkar Co. for Art, Visual and Advertisement Services, had no website and left little digital or media footprint.

But the deal with the Syrian Football Association, known as the SFA, gave the company exclusive advertising and marketing rights to all domestic Syrian competitions, the country’s national and Olympic teams, as well as all regional and international championships.

The contract, which was awarded without a tender, also gave Afkar an unusually large 35-percent cut of the revenues from its marketing activities, entitling it to a significant portion of the SFA’s income. Hossam Moasas, the SFA’s legal counsel at the time, described the deal’s terms as a “disaster” for the SFA.

Behind the scenes, the influence of former President Bashar Al-Assad’s brother Maher was instrumental to landing the deal for Afkar, three people involved in the deal told OCCRP’s partner, Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism (SIRAJ).

Afkar was majority-owned by Fares Al-Jadaan, Maher Al-Assad’s nephew by marriage, company registry documents show. Moasas, as well as the SFA’s president at the time of the deal, and Afkar’s former public relations manager all told OCCRP that Jadaan’s family ties to Maher Al-Assad were the reason the contract was awarded.

Maher Al-Assad, President Bashar Al-Assad’s brother.

Mohamed Fadi Al-Dabbas, the former SFA president, said the Afkar deal was signed after the SFA received “instructions” from the Fourth Division’s office, adding that “whoever does not follow the instructions will lose his head.”

“If I hadn’t signed it, I would have been sent to Saydnaya,” Dabbas said, referring to a notorious prison complex north of Damascus where the Assad regime held and tortured inmates.

Jadaan did not reply to requests for comment. His father, Bassel Al-Jadaan, denied that his family’s link to Maher’s wife was the reason the contract was handed to Afkar: “There is no truth to any fabrications and allegations related to the alleged information you have that the kinship relationship between me and my sister … was exploited in any governmental or private sector,” he said.

Rima Haddad, Afkar’s executive director at the time the contract was issued, said she was not aware of pressure from the Fourth Division and dismissed the idea that Maher Al-Assad’s influence was the reason the contract was awarded as “hearsay” and “a false allegation.”

“The company did not receive any sovereign support or cover from influential people at any stage of its contract with the football association,” she said.

Maher Al-Assad, whose current whereabouts are unknown, could not be reached for comment.

The collapse of Assad’s regime in December dismantled a patronage network that had long benefited insiders. Maher Al-Assad’s Fourth Armoured Division, one of Syria’s most powerful military units, developed a kleptocratic network of business interests in areas such as metals, tobacco, and weapons smuggling. The unit was sanctioned by the United States in 2020 and by the European Union in 2023.

A toppled statue of Hafez al-Assad in the streets of Damascus, Syria, in December 2024.

Fares Al-Jadaan is little known in Syria, but he is the nephew of Maher Al-Assad’s wife, who is sanctioned by the EU for benefiting from and being closely associated with the Assad regime.

Ghaith Harfouch, Afkar’s former public relations manager, told reporters that the SFA awarded the contract to Afkar under pressure from Maher Al-Assad’s adviser Ghassan Ali Bilal, who served as head of the Fourth Division’s security bureau. Bilal could not be reached for comment.

Moasas, the former legal counsel, told reporters that the SFA was working from an “inferior position” during the 2019 contract negotiations.

“I realized from the first meeting that the contract was like a contract of adhesion: ‘We [Afkar] want to take a share from you [the SFA], whether you like it or not,’” Moasas said, referring to a type of contract signed between two parties with unequal bargaining power.

Salah Ramadan, the SFA’s president from 2022 to 2024, said that when he took his position, he was told to “be careful” when dealing with Jadaan, whose family connections were “known” at the time the contract was signed.

Army Budget for Syrian Sports
The intervention in the SFA contract was not the Fourth Division’s sole foray into sports. An internal Syrian army memo dated November 26, 2023, found in Ghassan Bilal’s office by AFP’s Roba El Husseini after Assad’s fall, requested 3.5 billion Syrian pounds (around $269,000) from Maher Al-Assad to cover the contracts of players and technical managers in Syria’s football and basketball teams. The amount was part of an annual budget allocation within the Syrian army.

The 35-percent cut of revenues proved particularly controversial.

Abdul Fattah Al-Taljabini, a Syrian expert in sports management, said that Syrian marketing companies’ revenue-sharing rates are usually between 3 and 10 percent. Harfouch, Afkar’s former public relations manager, said most companies took 10 or 20 percent.

Under the deal’s terms, Afkar’s earnings for 2022 and 2023 would have amounted to about $240,550 in total, according to OCCRP’s calculation of the amounts in the company’s requests for payment and activity report it sent to the SFA during the period. By comparison, the SFA’s own earnings in 2022 and the first half of 2023 combined amounted to less than $500,000.

It is not clear how much the SFA actually paid Afkar. The SFA did not reply to OCCRP’s questions. Afkar claims that significant amounts were unpaid by the time the contract was terminated in 2022.

Moasas, the SFA’s former legal counsel, said that during negotiations, he tried to balance out some of the contract terms that were too favorable to the company, such as the 35-percent clause, through an executive regulations annex. “My goal was to make the disasters in the contract as mild as possible,” he said. Ultimately, he did not succeed.

Haddad, Afkar’s former executive director, said the company was awarded the contract after it sent a marketing proposal to the president of the Syrian General Sports Federation, the SFA’s parent organization. (An internal memo obtained by reporters shows the parent body did approve the Afkar contract.)

She maintained that her company was “very professional” and pointed out that it had brought in new advertising and other contracts for the SFA.

Haddad defended the 35-percent clause, saying the contract was the first of its kind and “commercial custom in Syria stipulates that the [marketing] partner be given a percentage that may reach half and no less than a third without bearing any expenses or costs.”

She added that Afkar ultimately received “much less” than $240,550 from the SFA, but declined to give specific figures.

Syria’s Federation Chamber of Commerce did not respond to OCCRP’s questions about the usual revenue-sharing rates for marketing contracts.

Extracts From Afkar’s Marketing Contract

  

 

After taking his position in 2022, Ramadan terminated Afkar’s contract after criticizing the revenue-sharing clause, though he said the SFA was still obliged to pay Jadaan “his dues.” He told SIRAJ that the contract had been “unfair” to the SFA, specifically citing the 35-percent clause.

Haddad did not comment on the reasons the contract was terminated, citing confidentiality agreements, but said that “shortcomings that marred the implementation of the contract” had been “resolved amicably and through legal means.”

In September 2022, Afkar filed a complaint to the state’s public sector audit authority against the SFA to collect payments Afkar claims it was still owed. The outcome of the complaint is not clear, and the following year, Afkar was dissolved.

Since then, the SFA has been handling its marketing on its own.

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• Mazen Al Hindi contributed reporting.
• Creative coordination and visual solutions: Radwan Awad

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