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Samer Foz, tycoon who helps Assad, uses UK firm for dealings!
Samer Foz, tycoon who helps Assad, uses UK firm for dealings!
A powerful Syrian businessman under international sanctions because of his support for President Assad’s regime allegedly controls a television station via a company in London.
Samer Foz is the director of a British company that acts as his agent but also apparently runs a TV station and propaganda website through two other companies, The Times has learnt. Mr Foz, 46, has made a fortune through deals between the Assad regime and Syrian Kurds to sell wheat, and through construction projects on land taken from families who have fled the war.
The news of his UK business interests follows a report from the Commons foreign affairs committee yesterday that described the government’s sanctions policy as “fragmented and incoherent”.
Mr Foz continues to run his businesses despite EU financial sanctions and a travel ban imposed in January. The EU has said he “provides the
Sigal Mandelker, the US undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said Mr Foz directly supported Assad’s regime and was “building luxury developments on land stolen from those fleeing his brutality”.
Mr Foz told The Times last year that he was considering investing in Britain. He became the director and co-owner of Morjan in 2014; the company is financially inactive but its accounts in February said that it had “acted as an agent for a person” in the previous year.
Mr Foz lists himself on Companies House as Turkish and living in Turkey. His correspondence address and registered office is Moorcrofts, a law firm in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. The other directors include Jaafar al-Charif al-Fadel, 73, who is based in Lebanon and is also the director of a company called Lana TV, whose registered office is a semi-detached home in Harrow, northwest London.
The US sanctions cover the Lana TV station based in Lebanon, which the US Treasury has said is “owned or controlled by Mr Foz” and “used to solicit investment in Syria”.
Alminbar TV, another British media company controlled by Mr al-Fadal, is not listed in the US sanctions notice. It is an Arabic-language website that focuses on pro-regime economic news from Syria.
Mr Foz has been part of Assad’s circle but has avoided sanctions and travelled widely for years. His main business, ASM International Trading, is based in Dubai. He and his brothers, Amer and Husen Foz, were sanctioned by the US in an effort to “cut off critical supplies and financiers for the regime”.
The US has said that Mr Foz has a passport from the Caribbean island nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, which offers citizenship for an investment of $150,000. It allows him visa-free travel in the Schengen zone. The US has also said that Foz family interests facilitated shipments of Iranian oil into Syria via a Lebanon-based company. The deals breached American restrictions on Tehran’s oil trade.
Mr Foz was not immediately available for comment.
