Bashar Al Assad’s in-laws flee UK for Moscow: Parents of dictator’s British-born spouse Asma left household’s £1million West London residence ten days in the past, neighbours reveal as ‘First Lady of Hell’ begins new life in Russia

The in-laws of former Syrian President Bashar Al Assad have fled the UK and are believed to be in Moscow, their neighbours and friends have told MailOnline.

Fawaz Akhras, a renowned cardiologist, and Sahar Akhras, a retired diplomat, are the parents of Asma Al Assad, who married the deposed Syrian dictator in 2000 when he was studying in London.

The couple live in a smart, modest home in North Acton, west London where they raised Asma before she went on to live a life of opulence as the Syrian First Lady while her husband waged a campaign of terror to suppress his political opponents.

The owner of a Syrian supermarket in Acton, who knows Mr Akhras but did not wish to be named told MailOnline: ‘I saw him about ten days ago and he said he was going abroad for a while and that his wife was already out of the country.

‘He didn’t say where but there is a large Syrian community in Acton and the word is that he and his wife have gone to Moscow to console their daughter and son-in-law. 

‘It doesn’t surprise us because they are a close family and they’ve always supported their daughter.’

One neighbour, who has known the family for 30 years but did not want to reveal her name, said that the property had been empty for the past week and that Mr Akhras and his wife have likely flown to Russia to meet their daughter and her family.

She added: ‘The house is empty and we’ve heard that they are abroad. They are usually around but keep a low profile because there are a lot of Syrians living around here.’

The Kremlin has confirmed that Al Assad, Asma and their three children were given asylum on the direct orders of Vladimir Putin after fleeing Syria.

The west London suburb of Acton has one of the capital’s largest Syrian communities and many had gathered in a local coffee shop to discuss events in the country.

One man, Tariq, said: ‘We all know that Asma’s parents live in Acton, but we don’t bother them because it’s not their fault that their son in law was such a brutal tyrant. And we also don’t want to do anything illegal in this country.

‘We’ve heard that they have left the UK for now, partly for their own safety and because they want to be with their daughter.’

Meanwhile Abdel, who said that his father knows Mr Akhras, added: ‘He (Mr Akhras) and his wife are not in the UK. They’re probably with their daughter comforting her and helping to spend all the money they’ve stolen from the Syrian people.’

Mr and Mrs Akhras raised their daughter Asma in their terraced house, which is worth £1million today. 

Born in 1975, Asma enjoyed a gilded childhood before carving out a successful career in international banking.

On the face of it, she was destined for a glamorous career, having been raised by her hard-working Syrian parents.

As a child, she was enrolled at a prestigious public school, Queen’s College, Marylebone, where fees are almost £9,000 a term before graduating at King’s College London in 1996 with a degree in computer science and French literature. 

Not even Asma, who was known simply as ‘Emma’ by friends at school, could have imagined that she would go on to marry an authoritarian president who would rule over Syria with an iron fist. She was later branded the ‘First Lady of Hell’ herself.

It was during the 90s in London that she grew close to future President Bashar al Assad, who had moved to the capital in 1992 to train as an eye doctor. 

But two years later, his own ambitions to break into the medical profession in London were stalled as his elder brother died in a car crash and he was suddenly propelled to being the heir apparent for his father Hafez, who had ruled over Syria since 1971.

The London student, more interested in technology and medicine, was called back home. 

And after fast-track military training, rising from captain to colonel in three years, Bashar was ready to succeed his father. 

When Hafez died in June 2000, Bashar kept the Assad dynasty going, winning 97 per cent of the vote and taking over as president.

Asma’s banking career, which started at major companies including Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan, was dramatically put on hold as she embarked on a new life, marrying Bashar the same year he came to power. 

Her seemingly ‘normal’ upbringing had taken a fatal turn after her husband’s ‘accidental’ rise to presidency transformed her life forever.

Asma, who holds dual citizenship, British and Syrian, was born in London in 1975.

Her parents, both Sunni Muslims, moved from Syria to London in the Fifties so that her father, a cardiologist at the Cromwell Hospital and in Harley Street, could get the best possible education and medical training.

She was first educated at a Church of England school in Ealing before attending Queen’s College, Harley Street. 

The former president and first lady, whose 24-year dynasty came crashing down when Syrian rebel forces stormed the country, have three children who are aged between 19 and 23.

At Queen’s College — alma mater of heiress Christina Onassis, broadcaster Emma Freud and celebutante Peaches Geldof — the girl fated to become a president’s wife was said to have often ‘bunked off lessons’.

Queen’s girls are known for their tendency to frequent the nearby shops of Oxford Street in break time – and it seems Asma was no exception.

A former pupil once said: ‘Like Peaches Geldof, they are mouthy and precocious, or outspoken and opinionated, depending how you look at it. No shrinking violets there.’

Another said: ‘The girls are concerned about global poverty, but they also love designer handbags.’

From Queen’s, where she achieved four A-levels, Asma went to King’s College London to read Computer Science and take a diploma in French Literature.

She graduated with a First and, after six months of travelling, joined Deutsche Bank as an analyst in hedge-fund management.

She then moved to the investment bank JP Morgan and worked in Paris and New York, as well as London. On family holidays back in Syria, she met Bashar.

Then he, too, came to London to study ophthalmology, though he had to leave early to return to Syria after his elder brother’s death.

Asma started seeing him in secret, resigning from JP Morgan just a month before the wedding without being able to explain the real reason.

As she told American Vogue, her boss couldn’t believe her timing, as she quit after closing a major deal and two months before her bonus was due.

She said: ‘He thought I was having a nervous breakdown because nobody quits two months before bonus-time after closing a really big deal.

‘He couldn’t accept my resignation. I was like: ‘Please, I just want to get out, I’ve had enough.’ And he [said]: ‘Don’t worry, take time off, it happens to the best of us.’ ‘

After their wedding in December 2000, Asma told The Observer that she spent the first weeks of her marriage travelling around rural areas of Syria in jeans and a t-shirt, so that she could ‘meet ordinary Syrians before the world met her’.  

Before the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in March 2011, the first lady had projected an image of a reformer. For years, she was was the face of female liberation in the Middle East.

In February 2011, Vogue magazine called an interview with her ‘A Rose in the Desert’ describing her as the ‘freshest and most magnetic of first ladies’.

But that year, war broke out in Syria between rebels and Assad’s regime over his brutally repressive regime and the reputation of the country as open and secular was trashed.

The gushing profile, published as Assad began terrorising his own people, was met with a wave of criticism and both Buck and Vogue’s editor, Anna Wintour, were accused of pushing a public relations campaign on the regime’s behalf, reported The Guardian.

In June 2012, Wintour issued a statement about the feature, saying, via The New York Times: ‘Like many at that time, we were hopeful that the Assad regime would be open to a more progressive society.

‘Subsequent to our interview, as the terrible events of the past year and a half unfolded in Syria, it became clear that its priorities and values were completely at odds with those of Vogue.

‘The escalating atrocities in Syria are unconscionable and we deplore the actions of the Assad regime in the strongest possible terms.’ 

During the conflict the couple are understood to have drifted apart, but with Assad’s mother dying in 2016 and Mrs Assad’s diagnosis of breast cancer in 2018, she was repositioned at the heart of the regime’s economy.

But this new role was nothing more than a ‘shakedown’ operation of the country’s middle class merchants and businessmen.

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.

But as pressure mounted on the oppression of the Syrian people, even Vogue pulled its interview with her from its website in 2012 after public backlash to the war.

Despite the challenges to her public image, she was still seen on the international stage meeting with the heads of state in Europe.

But Assad’s forces have clung to power until now, thanks to opposition forces reaching Damascus and recapturing areas on the outskirts of the capital following a years-long siege.

The regime has been accused of severe human rights violations and cruel assaults against civilians throughout the 13-year civil war, including the use of chemical weapons against their own people. 

President Assad, his wife, and their three children have been driven out of Syria, leaving their presidential palace to begin a new life in Russia after being granted asylum by Vladimir Putin.

Ms Al-Assad has become accustomed to a life of luxury, with reports that she spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on home furnishings and clothes during her husband’s reign of terror.

The US state department estimates that the family are worth $2billion, with their wealth concealed in numerous accounts, shell companies, offshore tax havens and real estate portfolios.

Now they are likely to draw on their family connections and extensive assets in Moscow in the hope of keeping up their comfortable lifestyle in exile.

The Syrian dictator’s extended family bought up at least 20 Moscow apartments worth more than £30million in recent years, illustrating Russia’s status as a safe haven for the clan.

The Kremlin today confirmed that the family was given asylum on the direct orders of Putin. 

Moscow disclosed no further details, with presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov telling reporters today: ‘We have nothing to say about Assad’s whereabouts.’