Who Trolled Amber? - Asma's Syria | We call her Emma Ep6

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

Eighteen months ago the Assad regime suddenly collapsed, and the first lady and her family fled to Moscow. A regime insider tells Chloe just how powerful Asma had become in the final years and what was happening inside the palace. Could Asma really have had aspirations to take over from her husband?We call her Emma is a 6 part original series from Tortoise Investigates and The Observer.Reporter - Chloe HadjimatheouProducer - Gary MarshallSound design - Karla Patella & Hannah VarrallPodcast artwork - Lola Williams & Eliza BournerExecutive producers - Jasper Corbett and Basia Cummings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tortus investigates. Sometimes it's just about being in the right place at the right time. That and dogged persistence. There have been people in Syria I've wanted to speak to for years, but I'd come to accept that being in the same room as certain regime insiders was unlikely to happen. And even though that calculations changed since the fall of the Assad regime, lots of people still want to stay in the shadows,

or at least not stray too far into the light. Bashar and asthma might be hundreds of miles away from Damascus, but there are new reasons for regime-connected people to be fearful about telling their stories. Atef Najib will be tried under both Syrian and international law. He is facing multiple charges, including the detention of minors. After years of being untouchable, people like Atef Najib, One of the men accused of torturing those teenagers in Dhar at the start of the revolution

are now on trial, facing lengthy prison sentences for crimes they must have thought they'd gotten away with. Actually, while we were in Damascus, we heard the news that Amjad Yusuf was arrested. He's a particularly notorious man, nicknamed the butcher of Tadamon. And buried using a bulldozer. He's accused of playing a second. He's accused of playing a central role in the massacre of dozens of people in a suburb in the south of Damascus and of ordering the execution of six children,

siblings aged between two and 14 years old on the grounds that these children were terrorists. For years now, these types of regime and forces have been popping up in Europe too and facing trials here. But in Syria, it will take years for the prosecutors to work their way through the law. list. And for those who had a hand in propping up the Assad regime, it could just be a matter of time before they get that knock on the door. Lots of the people closest to Asma and Bashar are adamant

that they really didn't do anything wrong. They never got their hands dirty. There's one such person who I had my sights set on because of his position. This is a man who's a big name in Syria in the business world, and he was very much in bed with the regime. He was friendly with some of the top people running the country. He would have had to have been in order to operate there for as long as he did. And given Asma's control of the economy and big business in Syria, we're pretty sure he has things to tell us. When our Syrian producer Sarah first approached him, he was cagey,

but over time she coaxed him into a back and forth over WhatsApp. And then to everyone's surprise, a message suddenly comes through saying he'll meet us. Before we get in the cab, Sarah tells us not to mention his real name out loud, not even in front of the taxi driver. That's the kind of reputation he has. So between ourselves, we start referring to him as George, and I'll stick with that name here. It's a long night of pleasantries edging towards the reason all of us are there, but we leave his house with an agreement.

George will go on the record if we change his voice and we don't name him. We're pretty sure the interview is going to be about asthma's influence in the economy. But when we do speak to him, he'll tell us that asthma's ambitions went far beyond that. Her involvement wasn't limited to orphanages and the world of business. He'll say she was preparing to run the country. I'm Chloe Hajimuthé, from Tortoise and, investigates and the observer, this is we call her Emma. Episode 6, Asma's Syria.

Our hotel in the old city of Damascus is like a little oasis of calm in the heart of all the chaos. It has a courtyard with a fountain, there are trees and birds. As we're walking out on our way to our interview with George, we passed Mohamed the concierge and his team at reception. and there, right next to where they're sitting up on the wall, is a gallery of photos. Their hotel guests from over the years and there's one picture that stops us in our tracks.

Do you remember the visit well? It's only Brangelina, in the same hotel we're staying in. Which room did they stay in? The room number 16, sweet type. It was sweet type. Not like my room, a bit bigger. Bigger, yes, it's bigger.

It's no bleaks. Well, you can't have it all. When were they here? They was here in 2009. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Hollywood's power couple at the height of their fame in Syria, at the height of Asma's popularity. But you think that maybe Brad and Angelina met the president and his wife?

I believe so, yes. There is a picture, I think, for them with the president, yes. It's a quirky detail. One that I immediately texted my family back home, of course. But they weren't the only famous faces travelling to Damascus around that time. There was Sting, Sean Penn, Richard Gere, the list is long. It might be hard to believe now, but up on that wall, that photo was a slightly dusty reminder of the trajectory asthma had been on before the war.

A friend to celebrities, queen of the photo opportunity, master of PR strategy. arose in the desert. Asma had truly reached a stage where she controlled the Syrian economy. This is George, the businessman who finally agreed to tell us his story. He spoke to us in Arabic, so we've used an actor to voice his words. We spent a weird and fascinating evening in his company. It was a real lesson in how the Syrian elites live, and I'd love to tell you more about it, but I can't.

All I can say is that George was mixing in the circles that I want to know about. Wealthy, influential, powerful people. He says he only ever met asthma in person a couple of times, which I'm not sure if I buy. But I also get she's toxic right now. And even in an anonymous interview, people don't necessarily want to admit their proximity. He did fall out of favour with parts of the regime, particularly Bashar, which is why he's speaking to us now. It also means he's not exactly a neutral commentator.

But he did have other regime friends and he knew a lot of what was going down in the halls of the presidential palace. Anyway, George says that as a businessman, he really felt asthma's controlling presence. By now this isn't news to me, but he says her influence didn't stop there. She had a team from the security

and military agencies who are monitoring people and even the Ministry of Interior, where she had two ministers who were loyal to her. And the instructions for us businessmen would come directly from her. He says that ministers and heads of agencies had this deferential, honorific title for her. They would say these are Al-Hajas directives, meaning Asma's directives.

It sort of translates as madam, I guess. Anyway, it's a sign of respect. Government officials used to tell us this is what the lady wants, or this decision is from the lady. That is how the talk would go. She started interfering in the regime's army and security. They would go out to inspect the borders and enter any agency or approach anyone claiming they were affiliated with her.

The idea when she started doing this was that she would become president. She was working, gaining. experience and building her team to eventually become president. One of the difficulties with doing interviews in another language is that it can be hard to pick up on the nuances of what people are saying in the moment. Sarah was there interpreting for us and she was having to balance keeping George comfortable while relaying the headlines to us. So it was actually only when I was pouring over the transcript that the last thing he said really hit me. Building her.

her team to become president. It's a significant claim. And when we were together that night, he didn't explain how he knew that or where he'd heard it. So I almost dismissed it. Until much later, I got hold of someone else. Hello? Hi, can you hear me?

Yeah, yeah. Hi, Chloe. I can hear you. It turns out that getting access to people who were close to the regime is like waiting for a bus. If you're patient enough, they all come at one. How are you? I'm good. Thank you so much for taking my call. No problem, no problem. A friend of mine, who has connections, put in a good word for me.

And as a result, this man I'm going to call Sziliman, cautiously agreed to take my call. You said you're doing a podcast and you have some questions about the regime or about some details and you wanted to ask some people. So the series is actually focused on asthma. Okay. Before the fall, he was linked to the regime, but I can't tell you how, or it might give away his identity. And for that reason, we've asked an actor to voice what he said to me.

You know, she's a British citizen, and so there's a lot of interest in her over here, and her role and how it changed over the two and a half decades she was involved in Syria. Yeah, okay, okay. But Chloe, just before we start, I'd be very happy to speak with you very frankly about everything. I just don't want to be mentioned anywhere. Suleiman knew Bashar and Asma. He had access to the inner circle once upon a time, even closer than George.

Getting this guy to talk to me is a really big deal. If anyone can give me a peek behind the regime curtain, it's him. Just like George, Suleiman watched, as in the last few years, asthma became extremely. powerful. She wasn't just running her own show. She was also running the president. She controlled through him. She had a lot of control over him. It started slowly and then it got bigger and bigger and stronger and stronger and like a lot of his team was chosen by her. People, you know, that were very close to him. She was very clever. She would get him

familiarized with them, then slowly she would put them into positions. And then slowly he would think that they were his choice. But really they were her people. So whatever you got him to agree to during the day, pillow talk might change it by the next morning. I wanted to know if Suleiman thought there really was anything to what Georgia had told me about the presidency. I heard one more thing that the Russians liked her

and that at some point they were tired of Bashar and were thinking about a replacement and that she was one of many on a list. Yes, there was such talk. I remember it. And I think it was actually mentioned to the president and he laughed at it. But the Russians and everyone liked her. Everyone who didn't have to deal with her on a daily basis. If you sit with her now, Chloe, you're going to like her. She's very socially intelligent.

Right. So it's only if you challenge her all. or if you get in her way that you realize what's really going on? No, you don't have to challenge her. You just have to not do her plan the way she wants you to do it. That's all. She's very vindictive. Everyone who knew her hated her.

Really? Yeah, everyone. Businessman hated her because it was clear how much she's interfering in the business world. Security people and intelligence people hated her because they would see her effect on the president. And ministers hated her because she would interfere in their work and in the governance of the country. And everyone thought it's not her place.

This is not constitutional. She's a first lady. She's not a second president. It was obvious to many people that she was a big problem. Asma's father, Fawaz Akras, responded to an email I sent him. He told me that any allegations that present his daughter through a narrow lens of power, ambition, and wrongdoing don't reflect the person that he knows, nor the humanitarian and development work she's done in Syria. He also said he's never seen any evidence that Asma sought political

power or controlled state institutions or placed individuals into positions of influence for personal purposes. The thing is, asthma wasn't the only one being accused of ruling through the president. there was another woman, a rival for Bashar's attention and for his affection. Everyone feared her, even Bashar's personal bodyguard. Over the years, Luna Shibble worked her way up the ranks of the regime until she had unfiltered access to the president. George knew her well. Luna would call him and he would come running, crawling to her.

He feared her. She was in control. She was truly in control. George tracked her astronomical rise to the top. In the last two years, it was not Bashar who was ruling us. The ones ruling the Syrians were the women of the palace. Luna had been a journalist at Al Jazeera, but in 2011 she started working in Bashar's media team.

She was beautiful and smart, and she quickly became an integral part of the regime's machinery. She controlled the media, controlled defense, and controlled security. Even the security apparatus listened to her. She played all sides. She was malicious and clever. One day she asked, are you with me?

I said, what do you mean? And she said, one day I will explain it. But for now, are you with me blindly? I said, I'm not with anyone blindly. It was obvious really early on that she was ambitious and manipulative. But Bashar and Asma needed someone with her. skills around them. Luna was, you know, an artist with the media.

This is a mirror. She worked in Asma's personal office for many years and she was pretty senior, so she knew Asma and Luna really well. But, you know the deal by now. She doesn't want to be identified, so this isn't her real name or her real voice. From day one, Luna took control of both of them. She took control of speeches. She took control of the image.

She took control of us. We couldn't write any comms without having to send it to Luna for her to check over it and send it back. I would send a letter to Asma and Luna would look over it first. She controlled access. But Amira says the first couple saw Luna as really competent and effective, and so they were giving her more and more control. Both Bashar and Asma believed in her. They embraced her.

They had been facing a dilemma. They didn't have anyone who could deliver strong, nationalistic speech. messages during the revolution. But other people in the regime were suspicious of her sudden rise. In their minds, she'd given up a really lucrative position at Al Jazeera to become what was essentially a civil servant in Damascus. It didn't seem to make sense. She's definitely a spy or was placed there.

There were lots of these rumours, and it looked like some senior people took them really seriously. Iran had been helping Bashar fight the war along with Russia and some senior Iranian officials in particular were seriously convinced that Luna was an Israeli spy. Despite all the rumours, she was brilliant at navigating the politics of the regime. Luna used to tell me I'm the first lady, not that woman.

She just couldn't stand, Asma. She called her evil. Along with her power, her wealth grew too. Luna was buying properties in places favored by the regime, like Moscow and Dubai. Amira knows all this, she says, because she saw the paperwork for these places in the office. And there were rumors that Bashar bought Luna a restaurant too in the heart of Damascus. From the time Asma got cancer, she started deteriorating. This is 2018.

Her vigor deteriorated, her work deteriorated. Luna's effect on her was very bad. She got very involved in her affairs and gave her bad advice. Around the time that asthma was diagnosed with breast cancer, rumours started to surface that Luna's relationship with Bashar was more than professional. Years later, a video would emerge from around this time of Luna and Bashar driving through Ghouta, a Damascus suburb. that was obliterated by Assad's chemical attacks and bombs in the war.

The two of them were looking at the rubble and laughing, taking the piss together. Amira says Luna was one of the women Bashar was sleeping with, but she had a special status, more akin to a girlfriend. Certainly, that seemed to be what? a lot of people in regime circles believed. Asma's father, Dr. Akras, told me that these kinds of claims are just based on spurious articles with no foundation, and that at no time did Asma ever discover serious infidelities by Bashar.

Whatever the truth of these rumours, I wondered whether the bigger question wasn't what Bashar had done, but about the competition between Luna and Asma. Luna doesn't love and Asma doesn't love. These ladies aren't like you and me. They love themselves. The difference is that Asma had a compassionate side. She was smart and knew the boundaries of one to pause and one to push. But it seems Luna didn't have these boundaries.

We were waiting for news of her assassination. Those who knew her said that for a long time, Luna had been digging her own grave. She had started messing up a lot in what she'd say and her relationships, especially what she'd say about Asma and Bashar. She started openly trashing the president and saying he doesn't know what he's doing. She was saying, I'm the one who knows and I'm the real first lady. She started blabbing about his relationship with other women

and started talking about Asma and saying she's dating people. She put out a rumor that Asma was having an affair with her senior aid. But Amira says this just wouldn't have been possible. Even if she was interested in someone, the intelligence services were on her all the time. Where is she going to meet her lover? It looked like both Asma and Bashar had grown tired of Luna. They couldn't take her voice anymore.

They hated her near the end. They kicked her out. Bashar removed Luna from her political positions. She was being sidelined in a serious way and she was furious. She lost it. She lost it. Luna started threatening them, saying she knows everything and knows all the relationships. And Luna threatened Bashar so much that she would speak out. And she had started speaking out.

And then, in July 22, In 24, regime news channels announced that Luna Shibble had been in a car crash just outside Damascus. She'd sustained serious injuries and although she made it to hospital, within just a few days, she was dead. I mean, I assume that you believe that Luna was killed rather than a car crash. I wanted to know what Silliman thought about it all. I think with Luna they tried to make her understand in a few ways that the time, that you were a powerful human being in Syria is over. You can just have this office and speak to us every other day,

but you have no influence anymore. And I think she kept trying to play a bigger role, and she didn't take it well. And things ended. And you think Asma had a hand in that? I think whatever the president had a hand in, Asma had a hand in. They go hand in hand in everything. I don't think he took one decision on his own,

Not one. And you think it was his decision that Luna would end this way? I think it might have been her idea, Asmas. Her people set up the time and place, and then the rest was done by the security services. When I first read about Luna, I wasn't sure about this conspiracy theory that she'd been murdered. It's often hard for people to accept when someone famous,

someone who seems larger than life, dies in a mundane way like a car crash. But when I was in Syria, I had a conversation that changed my mind. I met someone who was close with Luna and her family. When they heard about the car crash, they happened to be close by and they rushed to the scene and then followed Luna's ambulance to the hospital. And they managed to take photos. In one picture they showed me, there was a big scrape along Luna's car.

It looked like it had been rammed from the side. At the hospital, this person took a video of. of Luna's brain scan, it looked like she'd been hit on the back of the head, not the kind of injury you'd usually sustain in a crash. Almost everyone I speak to in Syria is convinced, so it's easy to forget that actually there's no concrete evidence that Luna was murdered. There was never any kind of investigation, and now it seems unlikely that we'll ever know for sure what happened to her.

By the summer of 2024, the front lines of the conflict had been frozen for years. Bashar only controlled about 60% of the country, but the two main rebel groups were contained in the north. More than a decade of grinding war had settled into a stalemate, and the international consensus seemed to be that the Syrian regime had won. Yes, Bashar and Asma were tarnished, but they were here to stay. The Arab League had even readmitted Syria after excluding it at the start of the regime's crackdown. And Saudi Arabia had rolled out the red carpet for Bashar when he attended his first summit in more than a decade.

Asthma too was getting new photo opportunities. Pictures were appearing online of UN officials sipping tea with her in Damascus. But she'd also been struggling with health issues. In May 2024, she'd made an announcement. She had cancer again. This time, it was acute myeloid leukemia. Some commentators in the Arab media noted that asthma's video came just a couple of months after the British royal Kate Middleton

announced her cancer diagnosis in her own video. They speculated about whether asthma hoped to get similar global sympathy and attention. She might not be on the cover of Vogue anymore, but while Syria was out of the headlines, the couple were trying, to rehabilitate themselves. By that autumn, the world was distracted with wars in Gaza and Ukraine and with Trump's re-election. So no one saw it coming. These fighters have reignited Syria's civil war.

A loose coalition of jihadistan secular rebels whose lightning advance poses the biggest challenge to President Assad in many years. After only a few days of the lightning offensive, the rebels led by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahir al-Sharm have taken Syria's second largest city from the hands of the Assad regime. President Assad was kept in power by Iran and Russia, and with one distracted by a standoff with Israel and the other by war in Ukraine. They threw him under the bus this week, leaving his country up for grabs. In just over a week, the jihadist rebel group, Hayat Ther al-Sham, or HTS,

carried out a coordinated offensive starting in northwest Syria. They rapidly pushed south through Aleppo, Hamas and Homs. And on December 7th, they reached the capital, Damascus. History made overnight as Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is overthrown in a lightning move by rebel fighters. They are this morning inside the presidential palace, walking its huge halls, celebrating amid the abandoned luxury of the Assad regime. The first images of a free series, Long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad is toppled.

We now know Assad fled to Russia that Sunday before sunrise. Where to start in trying to understand the magnitude of what's just happened in Syria. Today it just feels like, you know, the regime fell so quickly. It's been hard to keep up. Well, it is shocking, isn't it? It's stunning how fast everything is moving. In terms of the international relationship... The speed of it caught everyone off guard.

It's a moment that will be etched into the moment. memory of every Syrian, the ones who stayed and the ones who had to leave. Including Sarah, our producer, who'd been away for more than 13 years, got on a car with a friend the day after, and crossed the border, back home. And we crossed over, first of all, there was no border. There was no border. There was no one there. It was just dead quiet. And then we were driving and we saw this massive billboard of Vashar's face and it was torn. and it was so crazy, it didn't feel real. Like, have I actually gone back home to a Syria without Assad? Because that was just, you know, it was, it was Syria al-Assad. That's how we were taught that term.

It was Assad Syria. And to see his face ripped down, and for people to have accepted that as a norm, made me feel like I was in a TV show, none of this was real. And it just, the whole country was, It was frozen in time. I hadn't been back in 13 years.

Me and Sarah are just two of many, many journalists who've tried to piece together what happened, how the regime collapsed so quickly, what went on in the chaos and what was missed. And rightly, most of the world was focused on Bashar al-Assad and his escape to Moscow. And then clues began to emerge. Weeks after they got there, Bashar and Asma's oldest son,

Hafez, Jr. posted a video on social media. He was walking near the Kremlin in Moscow and talking into his camera, warning his followers that there were some fake social media accounts in his name. But he also posted on telegram, a long explainer of how the family had left Syria. He and his dad Bashar, he said, had no intention of fleeing. But then on the night of Saturday, the 7th of 10th. December, a Russian official came to their home in the El Malki district in the centre of town

and warned them that they needed to get out of the capital. They arrived at the coastal town of Latakia in the early hours of Sunday the 8th, but were told to move again, this time to a Russian military base. And when that base came under attack, he said they were bundled into a plane to Moscow. It all happened within just a few hours. In fact, it didn't go quite as Hafez Jr. described it. Thanks to a detailed investigation by Reuters News Agency, we now know that there was a major operation to get Assad family money and valuables out of the country, an operation involving several planes and lots of flights over several days that must have taken extensive planning.

In the dying hours of the regime, Bashar prioritised his immediate family and his vast wealth. Most of his inner circle, those who had supported him for years, were left in the dark about what was happening. Hours before he fled, Bashar apparently called his senior media advisor and asked her to be at his Damascus home first thing on Sunday morning to help him write a speech. When she arrived, they were already long gone. Several days earlier, Asma too began sending word to all her employees.

She wanted them in Damascus. ask us for a meeting. Some came back from the Gulf, others were told to cancel their trips abroad. So it was a huge shock on Sunday morning when they woke up to discover the rebels had taken over the capital and their president had fled. After decades of service, all those who had considered themselves the Assad's friends and confidence had been left behind to face the hordes. They scrambled to hide and get out of the country while footage on TV showed officials being lynched in the streets. But why? Why did they do that?

To give the impression that they are staying and they're not planning to leave so the president can make a safe exit. Because if all his people started to leave the country, then everything would collapse and he wouldn't have decided to leave yet. So he's giving himself the luxury to leave while everyone is there and things are in order. Think about it. If her aid didn't come back to Syria

and her other closest aid had left and people started fleeing the country while he's still in his palace, most probably he would have been killed on the way to the airport. So they were both prepared to put everybody that was close to them for so many years in danger

to save themselves. Yeah. There must be a lot of anger. Yeah, can you imagine? I think the world has never seen so much disloyalty. Not even Saddam Hussein and his comrades, or Qaddafi had such little humanity. There's no door, man. On our way back to London, we pass back through Beirut, where we have one more call to make.

It's in an upmarket downtown area, in a high-rise apartment with stunning views across the city. It's where Abdo, Asma's cousin, and his wife, Arwa, now call home. They're the couple we heard from in episode one. These days, they're exiles from their country. The truth is, I wasn't really sure how this meeting was going to go. I knew the couple had been close to both Asma and Bashar. Abdo is Asma's first cousin, their mother.

mum's as sisters. His wife, Awa, worked with asthma. They were close. Her name actually appears in the hacked emails in 2012, where an exchange between them shows that Awa was helping asthma with her luxury shopping at the start of the war. So when we finally sit down to chat, I fully expect them to defend the First Lady, and that's what they do. So some of the other things that have been reported more recently are, for example, the orphanages that were under the Syria... That was a lie. That was a lie. That was bullshit. That's just... In the hour or so we spend there, the couple explained to us why they believe that asthma was a victim in all this. They say her only real mistake was in marrying that crook and idiot Bashar al-Assad.

After that, they say, there was no way out. For our listeners that don't understand the mechanics of Syria, when you say she's stuck, what would have happened if she'd tried to do something? She can't. I wish she would have tried to leave. If she left, she would leave without her kids. Yeah, she can't. You wish she would have tried?

Yeah. And what would have happened? Taking the kids, gone, because everything that happened, she was against. She was against all the killing, all... Everything that happened during the war. Imagine living in that stress bubble. It's a stress bubble.

Her body god was from the revolutionary god, you know. His job to guard her and if she stray away to kill her. Yeah. Really? Yeah, so can you imagine living? Do you think her life was a... Oh, no, if she leaves? No, no, wait a second.

You mean if she leaves? Oh, she would be killed. Oh, of course. There's no question. Abdo and Bashar were once school friends. They hung out in the same social. crowd, but at some point in the last few years, they fell out. Initially, it seems, because the president believed Abdo had told his wife about his

infidelities. The first fight with him, he thought that I told Asma about the woman. Oh, that he thought that you betrayed him to Asma. Yeah, I betrayed him and I told Asma, I would never stoop so low to it. This is too low for anyone. I mean, it's not a matter of interest. And he believed I told Emma about all these women, you know. And I would never do this.

In the end, they severed ties completely around 2019. That was the last time Abdo saw the cousin he still calls Emma. Can I ask you this? Why was contact severed? Could the communication with her not have continued? Bashar would not allow it. But he's watching everything. No, no, no.

But no, let me. When I saw her in 2019, we talked outside the house, not inside. Where did you go? In the garden. She took me outside. So there was a danger on her meeting up with her cousin who had such points of views. No, no. Yeah.

Especially me. I went there as a family and we talked. I took her away. She said, let's go outside. And I told her, your name is being really abused. this is your history, this is your legacy and you have to defend your name. She said, I felt she can't do anything about it.

You could feel it in her eyes. I felt sorry for her, but she cannot. She said, what are me to go? What do you think is going to happen to Emma and how? She's got sanctions on her. Life must be quite different. She's living better than you and me. She's comfortable.

No, no, no, no. Don't worry about her. She's living better than you. Her kids now living better than before. I think now she's just focusing on her kids. That's it. Yes. Have you guys not had any contact with her?

But why now that they're outside Syria is not? I would never associate with this shit here. Never. He's, and you can't contact her without him? To be honest with you, I wish I could do it because I want to just ask her one question. Why didn't you listen to me? What would she have done? Arwa.

I would have helped her a lot and you know me. She was worried about her kids. Not helping her. She was afraid. To clear her name, she could have made a statement to the Syrian people. I don't know this. Literally, I told her, you, why? After they left Syria, Bashar and Asma were given asylum in Moscow.

They live in the luxury Rublyovka neighborhood, Moscow's Beverly Hills or Belgravia. It's the same area where President Putin and the former Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev have homes, as well as a ragtag of famous names and washed up leaders who've also sought asylum and are reported to live there, like former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and the former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. I can only begin to imagine the dinner parties. The Assad's are guarded by a Russian security. detail, and Bashar reportedly spends most of his time squirreled away in their penthouse flat at the top of a big tower block. I've heard that he fills his time playing candy crush

and pouring back over his old ophthalmology textbooks, rekindling the studies he was forced to abandon in the 90s. Asthma is keeping herself busy too. Now they are living really well. Don't worry about them, worry about ourselves. Let's worry about ourselves. I'm not worried about them And Emma, do you think, I mean, I wonder if she's bored because she was so busy. She'll do something. She's, she's, I promise you. She's going to be doing something. I'm positive.

Asma's spending more time with her children who are now young adults. Kareem, the youngest, is fluent in Mandarin and seems to have inherited his mother's interest in business. And apparently, Asma's been helping him out. Knowing her. Through Kareem, they are doing a lot of shit in Chinese companies. Definitely. 100%.

She's keeping herself busy for sure. And by the way, now she is running. She's doing what she loves in business. And Karim is investing a lot in Chinese companies. And you think she's helping him. I think Karim made almost millions of dollars now out of Chinese companies. This little kid, he's doing money. Yeah, he's a smart kid.

And I'm doing shit. And while the world is preoccupied with hunting for Assad's henchmen, asthma's back to business as usual. The sanctions she's under restrict her in the, the West, but there are still large parts of the world where she's free to operate. She made sure that one of her kids has got her mentality of business. That's why she is doing this with her. And I think Kareem will do amazing job.

He will do a lot of money in the future, wait and see. And do you think they'll stay in Moscow? 100%. Until now, Abdo has insisted that asthma would never leave Bashar, no matter what, and that the rumours swilling around Moscow that she wants a divorce are rubbish. But then, he says, Right now, I think, if the MI5 or MI6 approach her and protect her with her kids, I promise you she will fly to London in one second.

Yes, it's not about her being built like that. With the kids. Yeah, with the kids, of course. Listen to me. I've heard that life in Moscow isn't much. fun for them. But even though they're living under certain restrictions imposed by the Russian authorities, like not being able to speak to the press, they do have permission to travel. So Asma's been going to the UAE a lot, specifically Dubai. For years, it's been a destination where she and her kids have

holidayed and shopped and apparently stored their wealth. By the way, Emma, Bashar and the kids, they have UAE passports. I don't know if you've known this. Yes, now they have it. Even my aunt got the passport. I'm not exactly surprised. The UAE presents itself as a home to millions of expats, a legitimate place to do business

and a fancy holiday destination. But if you scratch beneath the surface, there's a dark undercurrent. It has a reputation for being a place where lots of wealthy individuals wash up when they've been accused of corruption, sanctions evasions, or financial crimes. Prince Andrew was apparently considering relocating there. That's the kind of person this place attracts.

And Abdo's been saying that Bashar, Asma and the kids have UAE passports. Lots of others I've spoken to say they definitely have golden visas, giving them the right to remain in the UAE. Asma's mother, Sacher, now lives in Dubai. So does her brother Firas and her three children, Hafez Jr., Zain and Kareem. Bashar's been there a couple of times since the fall, but Asma is over there often. A senior intelligence source told me that just a couple of weeks ago, asthma was staying in the Wardle of Astoria in Dubai.

And I've been told the plan is for the former presidential couple to move there permanently, but possibly wary of the reputation they have internationally, the UAE government has apparently told them no, or at least not yet. I tried to contact officials to ask about this, but my emails have gone unanswered. But there may be another reason why Bashar hasn't moved permanently to the UAE. The country has extradition treaties with lots of places around the world, including France, which currently has three active arrest warrants out for him. Interestingly, there are no arrest warrants or even any criminal investigations that I could find for asthma.

And when the wheels of justice don't turn as they should, it leaves people stranded with their trauma and their anger. And that can be dangerous. After the regime collapsed, Bissan, the mother who spent seven years waiting to be reunited with her sons, finally walked out of prison. Once she managed to get back her boys from the orphanage where they'd been held, they all moved in with her mum and tried to build a new life together. Bissand says she just tried to push everything that happened out of her mind. She knows it might not be the best way to deal with it, but it's the only way she feels she can manage right now.

However hard she tried to forget the past, though, the past it seems, hasn't managed to forget her. One day she's scrolling through Facebook when she sees a post. It takes her a while to place the face, and when she finally does, her stomach does a somersault. It was her, the one with the dyed blonde hair. The guard who had been so cruel to Bissan and had enjoyed teasing little Omar

by showing him the food she was eating when he was so hungry. Even after her boys were taken from her, This guard loved ordering Bissan and the other women around, like they were worthless terrorists. You are not allowed to walk together. You need to go one by one. Keep your eyes on the ground. Don't look left or right. Can you imagine how humiliating it was?

And now here she is on Facebook. The prison she worked at was closed by the new Syrian government, so this woman has started a new hairdressing business. just round the corner from Bissan's home. Nothing in her posts about blowouts and perms suggests the fear and hatred she inspired inside that prison. Bissan notices a post where the woman is offering to train new hairdressers. And so I messaged her and I told her I wanted to come and sign up for the course.

And she said, you're welcome and gave me the centre's address. I immediately called someone in general security. and told him the whole story. The woman who's called Hala is arrested, and then Bissan is called into the security branch where she's being held. I saw her sitting there, I swear, handcuffed like this behind her back, blindfolded with tape over her mouth. The security officer in charge signals to Bissan to stay quiet

and listen while he questions Hala. He asked her, how was your relationship with the prisoners? She said, I was very good to them. They loved me. So he said to her, do you remember Bissan? She was a detainee. And she said to him, yes, she was a very respectful and well-mannered girl. So he said to me, come on, remind her of what used to happen.

So I spoke. You were good to us, huh? Do you remember when you did this and when you did this and when you? when you did that and that and that. I didn't leave anything out. Then I said, do you remember me? Do you remember who I am? She was stunned.

Then the security official calls in other women, former cellmates of Bissand, who also want to give evidence against Hala. But when these women see her, they're outraged. She sat there without a mark on her. That's when my friend said to them, Why didn't you hit her? Why haven't you stripped her?

They stripped us naked the moment we arrived. Why haven't you laid a hand on her? He said to her, our morals are not like theirs. We don't hit women. We're not like the last lot, the security official tells them. We don't beat and torture people like the Assad regime did. But then he says, of course, I can't be responsible.

for what you do when I'm not here. He said, well, we can go and leave you here with her. I swear to God, he said to her, do whatever you want. And then he turns his back and he walks out of the cell, leaving Halla and the group of angry women behind. And they, they vented their anger. Bissand says they were brutal. She also says she didn't take part.

that she sat in a corner and just prayed. I don't know if I believe that. Perhaps she did. I was really shaken by Bissand's story because I guess spending so long investigating what happened in Syria, hearing about mass murders, looking at Osama and Farid's photos, and hearing about Bissan's own traumatic separation from her boys,

I think a part of me too was filled with race. It's not very reporter like I know, but I'm human. And listening to this story about the former guard in the cell, it made me feel very uncomfortable. On one level, I understand why these women wanted revenge. But this isn't what justice should look like. Certainly if there is a solid foundation based on a strong evidential basis to demonstrate that those orphanages, were used to effectively imprison children

and that those children were used as bargaining chips to coerce people to come forward, to coerce people to abandon their opposition to the regime. Then there's every prospect that she and others could face prosecution. I've been talking to Toby Cadman, a British international human rights lawyer, about whether there could be a legal case against asthma. He's tried it once before,

in 2021 before the regime fell with a law chamber he founded called Gurneka 37. So we filed a request with SO-15 at the Metropolitan Police, their war crimes unit, to investigate. I remember when Toby and a colleague of his, a Syrian lawyer, put this file together. Back then, the evidence against asthma was largely based on public statements she'd made, supporting and encouraging the alleged crimes of the regime. Like this speech she made about a year before the regime fell. But in Syria, the tariheesh, am you kippo al-hap. And the right, hebr of them.

She talks about how Syrian needs to keep fighting. History is being written by the truth, she says. And the ink of truth is blood. She wasn't just the first lady that she was very much, involved with the running of the government. And so we had a back and forth with Metropolitan Police over a period of time. To their credit, they conducted a significant amount of investigations or investigative actions in the case.

But ultimately, the Crown Prosecution Service decided that asthma was physically out of reach of the UK authorities. So it just wasn't realistic to invest time and money in a case where there was no real chance of getting a defendant in the dock. But it was certainly our understanding was there wasn't necessarily a lack of evidence. But here's the most interesting thing Toby told me. It's something that hadn't occurred to me. The International Criminal Court, the ICC, the world's court for prosecuting individuals

accused of the worst crimes, like war crimes and crimes against humanity. it only has jurisdiction over countries that have joined its treaty. Syria never did, so the ICC can't open a case against Bashar al-Assad. Asma, though, she's a British citizen, and Britain has signed up to the ICC convention, and so technically the court does have jurisdiction over her, no matter where her crimes were committed. Actually, I'm surprised that Asma hasn't lost her citizen,

especially given the fact that other British women have had theirs taken away for what feels like a lot less. Like Shamima Begham, the young Londoner who went to Syria to join ISIS when she was 15. Perhaps allowing her to keep her British citizenship is a strategic move by the UK. But so far, I haven't heard of any plans to prosecute asthma. It's possible that could change if she becomes more accessible and actually she might be. Russia's provided her and Bashar a safe haven for now, but President Putin is a fickle man. If handing over the Assad serves Russia's interests,

for example, to preserve its two strategic military bases in Syria, well, then he might be willing to do it. The UAE too seems to be trying to better its image and its relations with the West. Last year, it allowed Ireland to extradite Daniel Kinnahen, a gangster that had lived in Dubai for years. So one day, it might be prepared to hand over Syria's former First Lady too. The world is shrinking for Asma and Bashar.

I don't foresee that either her or Bashar will remain in Russia forever. And once they are available to the authorities in whichever jurisdiction it might be, they should both face prosecution. Asma Alasad's journey is one of the most. extraordinary transformations of modern political life. From West London to the First Lady of Syria, rubbing shoulders with Hollywood grates, to a figure living in exile,

public enemy in a country where she was once so admired. The distance between the girl from Acton and the woman associated with so many atrocities isn't just a geographical journey. It's a moral one. and it's one that hasn't ended yet. And what are they doing now? Like, what is she doing?

Because she was so busy in Syria. She was controlling so much. What is she doing now? I don't know, but I heard she's doing okay. She's busy? I mean, she is busy. Don't forget they still have a lot of businesses to run. Suleiman's still in touch with lots of other regime-adjacent people who fled Syria.

People who used to consider Bashar and asthma friends, but who felt betrayed by them. And in the last 18 months since the fall of the regime, the shock of being abandoned has had time to percolate. It's turned into a dark brew of rage. He says he thinks lots of other people might be willing to talk to me now, people who are even closer to asthma and who have lots more to tell me. He and others were forced to leave so much behind when they fled Syria.

But the Assad's had been preparing for the fall of the regime for years, diversifying their financial portfolio, making sure that they and their children and their children's children will have plenty to live in luxury for generations to come. I don't know exactly, and I'm not sure where, but I think Bulgaria, Beirut and Russia, a lot of different countries. Through shell companies? Yeah, through shell companies.

In Syria, more witnesses and documents are surfacing every day, offering more insight and evidence for asthma's role in what will arguably go down as the 21st century's worst atrocity. So, this investigation doesn't really end here. In many ways, it feels like it's only just beginning. That's so helpful. I can't tell you how you. useful our conversation has been. And I really appreciate your trust and you taking the time to

talk to me. Thank you. No worries, no worries. Sure. We'll be in touch soon. Whenever you want, I'll be waiting. We put all the allegations in this series to Asma alasad via her father. We've yet to receive a response from her. Thanks for listening to We Call Her Emma. This series is reported by me, Chloe Hadimuthéo. It's written by me, and the producer Gary Marshall, with additional production by Hannah Varel. The field producer and translator in Lebanon and Syria was Sarah Dardush. The development producer was Jess Swinburne.

Sound design was by Hannah Varel. Our theme music is Yamo from the Syrian band Schoon. The podcast artwork was by Lola Williams and Eliza Borner. The voice actors were Hannah Joel, Ibrahim Heraz and Farah Haida. The executive producers were Jasper Corbett and Bashar Cummings. This podcast was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center. If you'd like more on this story, we've got exclusive reporting, including videos and photographs from our time in Syria, over on our website.

Just go to observer.co.uk. To get access, you can sign up to become a subscriber to the observer. As a subscriber, you'll get exclusive early access to our podcast. podcasts and unlimited access to our journalism across the Observer every day through our app and our website. That gives you newsletters, puzzles and exclusive offers and benefits. Tortus Investigates.