A tour of Assad’s homes with the Syrians who stormed them
The Assad family’s bedrooms are a graveyard of designer clothes boxes. Chanel here, Givenchy there, and a large package from Aishti, the upmarket Lebanese department store.
Assad had so many villas and palaces in Damascus that he could have stayed in a new one every day of the week. Middle East Eye visited the palaces of the Assad family and the Russian diplomatic mansion next door.
The Assad palace was ransacked by Syrians. MEE saw pictures of Bashar as a baby, his brother Basel - the heir to the throne who died in a car crash aged 31 - at an equestrian event and their father Hafez: austere, suited and surrounded by his sons.
“I never expected to find this level of luxury in Assad’s palaces,” one Syrian touring the house told MEE. “But it doesn’t make me angry. It just exposes how he was a thief while we were poor.”