Expired passport may mean Assad’s ‘critically ill’ wife is barred from returning to Britain

Without travel documents Asma al-Assad will be unable to come back to her native London following reports that she is critically ill with leukaemia.

The wife of Bashar al-Assad, the former Syrian dictator, has effectively been barred from returning to the UK following the expiry of her British passport.

Without travel documents Asma al-Assad, 49, will be unable to come back to her native London following reports that she is critically ill with leukaemia and has only a “50-50” chance of survival.

The disclosure about her passport status came as her father, Fawaz Akhras, an eminent cardiologist, left his post at a Harley Street clinic in an apparent effort to care for his daughter in Moscow, where she fled before the collapse of the Syrian regime.

There has been speculation that Asma is seeking to divorce her tyrant husband and wants to return to Britain to continue her cancer treatment.

Last night (Saturday) it remained unclear whether ministers had blocked attempts by Asma to renew her British passport when it ran out in September 2020, or whether she had allowed it to lapse. She also holds Syrian nationality.

However, Whitehall sources confirmed that she is no longer in possession of a valid British travel document and made it clear that Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, will not allow her to enter the UK on the grounds of ill health. The expiry of her British passport means the government will no longer have to consider the more draconian step of stripping her of her citizenship.

Born and raised in Acton, west London, she became Syria’s first lady in 2000 after marrying Assad, 59, shortly after he became president.

Assad and Asma in London in 2002.

Critics believe Asma played a key role in supporting her husband throughout Syria’s brutal civil war, which started with opposition protests in 2011 and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Leaked emails revealed that Asma was indulging in luxury shopping sprees in London and Paris, including ordering crystal-encrusted Christian Louboutin shoes, while ordinary Syrians faced torture and starvation. In 2012, she was placed under UK and EU sanctions, which constituted an asset freeze and travel ban.

The Assad regime was finally toppled earlier this month by the Islamist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham group.

Asma is said to have fled to Moscow weeks before Damascus fell and was later joined by her husband. The couple’s three children, Hafez, 23, Zein, 21, and Karim, 19, are also in the Russian capital, where the Assad family owns a string of high-end properties.

Assad sitting next to Asma as she begins treatment for early-stage breast cancer at a hospital in Damascus in 2018. Picture: Handout/AFP

After recovering from breast cancer in 2019, Asma was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, an aggressive cancer of the bone marrow and the blood, in May this year. Last week the Telegraph reported that she had been given a “50-50” chance of survival.

On Friday, it emerged that Asma’s father had quit as a consultant cardiologist at a clinic in Harley Street, central London. A receptionist said he had stopped working there “a few months ago”.

The move coincides with reports that Akhras has personally been overseeing his daughter’s cancer treatment, initially in the United Arab Emirates and more recently in Moscow.

The Times