theAsma al-Assad, his wife Bashar al-Assad she spent half her life in the United Kingdom, the country of which she is a citizen. But she is no longer welcome there.

According to Russian state news agencies, 49-year-old Asma al-Assad and her husband have found refuge in ally Moscow, although the Kremlin has not officially confirmed the presence in Russia of the couple and their three children.

This forced exile is the latest blow to the tarnished reputation of the woman who was once considered the glamorous asset of the Syrian dictatorship after she married Bashar al-Assad in 2000, who had just succeeded his father Hafez as the country’s president.

On March 23, 2012, The European Union has frozen her assets and banned her and other close family members of President Bashar al-Assad from traveling to its territory.as part of escalating sanctions against the Syrian government

But she holds a British passport and is not normally barred from entering the country.

Asked on Monday night before the House of Commons, the head of British diplomacy David Lammy however, he was categorical.

“I have heard it said in recent days that Asma al-Assad, a person with British citizenship, is trying to come to our country. I want to confirm that it is subject to sanctions and that it is not welcome”he said.

“I will do everything in my power to ensure that no member of this family can settle in the UK.”he noted.

Earlier, a senior Labor government official, Mr Pat McFaddenclarified that the authorities “they have not accepted a request for Assad’s wife to go to the UK.”

Britons have lost their citizenship for joining the Islamic State group, according to Bader Musa al-Saif, a researcher at the Chatham House think tank. “If this can happen to a stranger… the same thing, if not more serious, could be true of Asma al-Assad.”

The prime minister Keir Starmer however, he said on Monday that it was “too early” to discuss such a measure.

Born in 1975 in Londonof Syrian parents — father, cardiologist Fawaz al-Akhras, and mother, diplomat Sahar Otri — the Asma al-Assad lived for a long time in the west London area of ​​Acton.

The al-Akhras still have their home there, according to British media.

Asma studied Computer Science at King’s College London and then got a degree in French Literature. She then did her Masters in Business Administration and got a job at Deutsche Bank and then JP Morgan.

However, she gave up her job when she got married.

In Damascus, Asma, the scion of a Sunni family unlike her husband who is Alawite, embodied for many a modernizer of the middle east, since she does not wear a headscarf and has a striking appearance, unlike her husband’s mother, Anissa, who kept a low profile.

The couple has three children, two boys and a girl. The eldest recently graduated from Moscow University with a degree in mathematics.

Last May, the Syrian presidency announced that Asma he was suffering from leukemiahaving already undergone treatment for breast cancer between 2018 and 2019.

In the Western media, this tall, lanky lover of designer clothes and shoes was once nicknamed “Lady Diana of the Arab World”.

He welcomed celebrities such as Brad Pitt and the Angelina Jolie and was lavishly received abroad, before tarnishing her name because of her unwavering support for her husband since the 2011 uprising in the country.

The American Vogue magazine had featured her “Desert Rose” before removing the article from his website after the uprising began.

Since then, Asma has been criticized for her silence in the face of the authorities’ crackdown and has been labeled “Marie Antoinette” and “chief predator”.

She is accused by her critics of getting rich off of Syria Trust for Developmenta charity he founded that raises most of its funding from abroad.

With her husband, she also took control of many parts of the Syrian economy through proxies, according to the news site The Syria Report.

In 2020, Asma was targeted by US sanctions (just like her parents and two siblings) and the US Secretary of State at the time Mike Pompeo characterized her “one of the people who benefited the most from the war in Syria.”