Rifaat al-Assad, Former Syrian Vice President, Dies at 88
Uncle of deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad died after illness, family sources say.
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) — Rifaat al-Assad, the uncle of deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and a central figure in one of the most violent episodes of modern Syrian history, has died at the age of 88, two sources close to the family said on Wednesday.
Rifaat, who earned the sobriquet “the Butcher of Hama” for his role in suppressing an uprising in the central Syrian city in the early 1980s, died after suffering from influenza for about a week, according to one source who worked in Syria’s presidential palace for more than three decades and spoke to AFP.
A second source, a former Syrian army officer during the Assad era, confirmed the death, adding that Rifaat had relocated to the United Arab Emirates after his nephew’s government was toppled by rebels in December 2024, though the source did not specify where he died.
Once a powerful pillar of the Assad family’s dynastic rule, Rifaat commanded the elite Defense Brigades during a February 1982 crackdown on an armed revolt led by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.
The campaign was launched under the authority of then-president Hafez al-Assad, Rifaat’s elder brother, and resulted in widespread destruction in Hama.
The exact number of victims from the 27 days of violence has never been formally established, as the operation was conducted under a strict media blackout. Estimates by historians and rights groups have ranged from 10,000 to as many as 40,000 people killed.
Rifaat later served as Syria’s vice president but fell out with his brother and went into exile in 1984 after a failed attempt to seize power. He lived for years in Switzerland and France, later portraying himself as an opponent of Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded Hafez in 2000.
Swiss prosecutors accused Rifaat of a wide range of crimes linked to his military role, including ordering murders, acts of torture, inhumane treatment, and illegal detentions. In France, he was convicted in 2020 of money laundering and misappropriation of Syrian public funds and sentenced to four years in prison.
In 2021, Rifaat returned to Syria from France, avoiding imprisonment. Two years later, he appeared in a family photograph alongside Bashar al-Assad, his wife Asma, and other relatives, signaling a partial rehabilitation within the ruling family.
Following Bashar al-Assad’s ouster in late 2024, Rifaat crossed into Lebanon and later departed from Beirut airport, according to a Lebanese security source at the time, who did not disclose his final destination.
Human rights advocates said Rifaat’s death marked the end of a long but incomplete pursuit of accountability. “Regrettably, Rifaat al-Assad died before justice was served,” said Vincent Brengarth, a lawyer who, alongside the anti-corruption group Sherpa, helped secure his conviction in France.
Trial International, the NGO that initiated legal proceedings against Rifaat in Switzerland, said in a statement that Syrian victims had hoped to see him tried for the Hama massacre. “His death closes a major chapter of their quest for justice,” the group said.