Assad’s niece has assets frozen after found to be living and studying in London 

The niece of brutal dictator Assad (pictured) has been living and studying in London

Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad’s niece has had her bank account frozen as the National Crime Agency seeks to seize thousands of allegedly illicit cash.

Anisseh Chawkat, the daughter of a security operative who died in a suicide bombing, has been living and studying in London.

Her account is thought to have just under £25,000 in it and law enforcers are seeking a cash forfeiture.

Ms Chawkat studied at University of the Arts London and obtained a degree in spatial design, the Evening Standard reports. 

It emerged that the 22-year-old was in the capital in a preliminary hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

Her presence raises questions as to how she was able to get a visa and fund herself through her studies. 

National Crime Agency (NCA) chiefs say that their case for seizing the money is based upon the fact that the student had no legitimate source of income in Britain.

Pictured: Chawkat's father, who was Assad's security chief

Pictured: Chawkat's mother, who is the sister of the dictator

Pictured, left: Chawkat’s father, who was Assad’s security chief. Pictured, right: Chawkat’s mother, who is the sister of the dictator

This is coupled with the fact that some of her family members were listed for international finance sanctions.

Ms Chawkat’s final-year project concerned Selfridge’s Oxford Street store and focused on ‘the bond between fashion and architecture’.  

It is not yet known when she arrived in the UK but she completed her spatial design BA at Elephant and Castle’s London College of Communication last year. 

The based comes under the University of the Arts, which also covers Central Saint Martins and the London College of Fashion.

A source told the paper that the student’s relation to Assad was known at the London College of Communications. Her visitors included Assad’s son, Hafez al Assad. 

‘It was known who she was, but she kept it very quiet,’ they said. ‘She used to change the spelling of her name as well, which was a bit odd. Her cousin [Hafez al Assad] visited her once too. He was quite recognisable.’

Pictured: Former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad (front and right) poses with his family, including Bashar (back, second from left) and Bushra (back, far right)

Pictured: Former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad (front and right) poses with his family, including Bashar (back, second from left) and Bushra (back, far right) 

Ms Chawkat, who is not believed to be politically active, is now taking a Master’s in the capital.

Her address was withheld from journalists on the grounds that disclosure risks her being targeted by Assad’s opponents, which includes Islamic State supporters. 

The student’s mother, Bushra, is the dictator’s sister and was described as having a ‘fearsome reputation in Damascus’ in the Economist magazine back in 2013.

Its report claimed that she is able to ‘exercise considerable influence’ over the President. 

She was one of the 12 Assad family members listed for EU sanctions in 2012 because she was ‘benefiting from and associated with’ the dictatorship due to her ‘close personal relationship and intrinsic financial relationship’ to him and ‘other core Syrian regime figures’. 

Her assets were frozen and she was subject to a travel ban. She failed to overturn the sanctions two years later.

The European Court of Justice ruled that her move to Dubai after her husband’s death was not necessarily because she was trying to distance herself from Assad.

At the appeal, the court found that she may have moved to the UAE because of the deteriorating security in her war-torn home country.

Ms Chawkat’s father, Assef, was Assad’s military intelligence head and deputy defence minister before his 2012 death.

He was killed by a rebel outside the National Security Bureau in Damascus. One year earlier he’d been placed under US and EU sanctions for the part he played in suppressing demonstrations by opponents of Assad’s brutal regime.  

A spokesman for Ms Chawkat told the paper that she was ‘a young student trying to complete a degree with no political involvement’. 

MailOnline has approached the Home Office for comment on why Ms Chawkat was allowed to live in Britain.

 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk