Shortly before he fell into the hands of the rebels, agents of the Russian secret services put into action the plan for his escape Bashar al-Assad from the Syria.
Bashar al-Assad was instructed to board his private plane with his family, not to inform anyone in Syria and to disable the jet’s transponder, according to Bloomberg.
Al-Assad’s private jet landed at the Russian Khmeimim air base near Latakia, Syria, and from there he fled to Moscow using what appears to be a Russian military aircraft with the blessing of Vladimir Putin, who approved the rescue plan . The Russian president even decided to grant asylum to the deposed dictator.
According to Bloomberg, agents from Russia convinced Assad to leave Syria in a hurry, seeing that the regime forces would lose to the rebels.
Everything was done in absolute secrecy. In the early hours of Sunday, flight tracking site Fligthradar24 showed a plane taking off from Syria, believed to be carrying Assad and his family.
The small plane headed for the Mediterranean, but appears to have turned around and disappeared from radar. This was also the reason for rumors that the aircraft may have crashed.
No thought of extradition to the International Criminal Court
Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, told NBC News that Assad was taken out of Syria “in the safest possible way.” He is safe and this shows that Russia is acting as required in such a critical situation.”
He also noted that “Moscow helped Assad escape because he was blamed by the same group of states and governments, which constantly undermine the efforts of countries to live as they wish, as happened in Iraq, Libya and many others.”
Asked whether Assad would be handed over to the International Criminal Court, Ryabkov explained that Russia is not a party to the ICC’s founding convention.
Russian officials may have confirmed that Bashar al-Assad is in Moscow, however, no photos of the former Syrian dictator have been released since he arrived there.
It should be noted that the Assad family owns at least 20 apartments in Moscow worth about 40 million. dollars. Assad’s uncle, Mohammed Makhlouf, has reportedly bought at least 18 luxury apartments in the City of Capitals complex, located in the capital’s most expensive skyscraper district of Moscow.