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Madrid:Â Spanish police raided properties belonging to relatives of Bashar al-Assad as part of a money laundering investigation into a criminal organisation which may include several members of the Syrian leader's family.
Police searched 15 properties in the Marbella area belonging to Rifaat al-Assad, President Assad's uncle, and some of his children.
Spokesman Sean Spicer says that the United States must accept the 'political reality' that the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is up to the Syrian people.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin believes a U.S. missile strike on a Syrian airbase has 'seriously hurt' the US Russia relationship, according to news agencies citing the Kremlin.
The Syrian military says the US missile strikes in Syria killed at least six people. The US says the missiles were a response to Syria's use of chemical weapons. The move could raise tensions with Russia, which backs Syria's President.
Spokesman Sean Spicer says that the United States must accept the 'political reality' that the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is up to the Syrian people.
Judge Jose de la Mata has also moved to block 16 bank accounts held by individuals suspected of being connected to Rifaat al-Assad and deposit accounts belonging to 76 companies. Investigators believe that more than £250 million ($411 million) in Syrian public funds have been siphoned into these accounts.
The judge ordered the seizure of more than 500 properties owned by President Assad and his relatives, a court statement said. Real estate belonging to Rifaat al-Assad and his relatives in Spain is estimated at almost £600 million, including parking spaces in garages to villas, luxury apartments and country estates, virtually all in Marbella and nearby Puerto Banus, a glitzy marina development.
Among the property is an estate called La Maquina, a spread of more than 3300 hectares just outside Marbella, believed to be worth £50 million.
No arrests have yet been announced in what Spanish police have dubbed Operation Scar. According to judicial sources cited by the El Confidencial newspaper, besides Rifaat al-Assad Spanish police are investigating six of his sons, some of his daughters-in-law and two of his four wives.
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The youngest brother of Hafez al-Assad, the Syrian dictator who passed power on to Bashar, Rifaat was vice-president of the country in the 1980s before being forced into exile amid accusations of preparing a coup against his older brother.
Judge De la Mata believes that he took about £250 million with him when he left Syria and began to buy property in Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Curacao and France, where he settled.
The investigation in Spain stems from one in France, where Rifaat al-Assad has been accused of embezzling public funds and money laundering.
Last month, another Spanish judge opened an investigation into nine members of the Assad regime in Syria for alleged "state terrorism" in the kidnapping, torture and murder of a lorry driver who disappeared in Damascus four years ago.