Late queen's legal adviser worked for the 'butcher of Hama', Rifaat al-Assad

Queen Elizabeth II's private solicitor spent eight years helping to manage the offshore wealth of the uncle of the recently deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, an investigation has established.

- David Pegg Edward Siddons

Rifaat al-Assad became known as the "butcher of Hama" after allegations that he played a key role in a massacre of thousands of Syrians at the city of Hama in 1982. In 2024, Switzerland formally charged him with war crimes.

Concerns about Rifaat al-Assad's activities, including his record as the head of a feared Syrian paramilitary force known as the Defense Brigades, have been publicly raised in Europe and the US by the media, human rights groups and government officials since the 1980s. He left Syria for Europe in 1984 after a failed coup against his brother.

Inquiries by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism established that Mark Bridges, also known as the third Baron Bridges, served as a trustee on at least five trusts holding assets in France and Spain on behalf of Rifaat al-Assad or his relatives between 1999 and 2008.

During the same period, Bridges also held one of the most prestigious legal positions in Britain: private legal adviser to the British monarch. He was Queen Elizabeth's solicitor from 2002 to 2019.

The findings raise questions about whether it was appropriate for the monarch's personal lawyer to take the ethical and reputational risk of working for an individual accused of human rights atrocities, in view of potential embarrassment to the queen had the connection been discovered while she was still alive.

There is no suggestion of any regulatory wrongdoing by Bridges, who was knighted for his services to the queen in 2019. His firm, Farrer & Co, said the trusts were established on the advice of another leading law firm, that Bridges' work for Assad was in complete compliance with regulatory requirements in effect at the time, and that Bridges had been presented with evidence contradicting allegations made against Assad, which include claims of criminal sources for parts of his wealth.