Syria has been in the news often lately, for a lot of the wrong reasons, like the clashes earlier this month between Bedouins and Druze in the province of Sweida and unprovoked Israeli airstrikes on Syrian troops and the country’s capital. But lost in the endless saga of the day-to-day news cycle is the big picture of Syria’s putative transition into some form of democracy after the crumbling of the Assads’ totalitarian nightmare state.
An investigation by Reuters, published last week, offered a glimpse into one aspect of this transition — efforts by interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s government to revive the shattered Syrian economy through a committee apparently tasked with reappropriating and restructuring assets linked to Assad’s government and his corrupt business satraps, oftentimes by granting them immunity in exchange for surrendering the lion’s share of these assets.
These deals have sparked controversy due to the war profiteering of these business magnates, who propped up a state soaked in the blood of its populace, and due to what Reuters described as a lack of accountability and transparency in the work of the committee.
New Lines reached out to representatives of the Syrian government, who sought to challenge the findings of the Reuters investigation, arguing that the settlements the authorities are seeking with Assad-era businessmen have not been finalized and do not offer them immunity from war crimes investigations.
They also lamented Reuters’ characterization of the government’s efforts, in a quote by a banker familiar with the talks, as “Machiavellian” and “shadowy,” arguing that the negotiations were necessary to avoid upending the country’s fragile recovery and that the committee was established in a publicly available presidential decree.
Talk of Syria’s political transition has taken a back seat to the interlocking emergent crises facing the government, from sectarian and communal violence on the coast and in Sweida, to lifting sanctions and securing foreign investments, controlling the rebels that forced Assad’s downfall and battling foreign interference.
Yet the episode — both the Reuters investigation and the indignant response by a government mired in sorting out a nation disfigured by five decades of one of the cruelest and most incompetent regimes in modern history — highlights some of the key challenges that this transition still presents, less than a year after Bashar al-Assad fled the country for Moscow.
It also highlights the stakes and contours of some of the battles that will be fought as the country attempts this fragile transition — on one side stand the civil society activists who rightly want transparency and for those who profited from their abject misery during a debilitating civil war to be punished and declawed, shutting down the possibility of their resurgence, and on the other is a government caught between the impulse to reward its loyalists and the need to avoid spooking investors as it reshapes the destroyed economy.
Mohammed Hamsho is emblematic of Syria’s entrenched Assad regime economy: a well‑educated technocrat turned oligarch, whose fortunes rose in proportion to his loyalty to Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle. He was involved in a dizzying array of commercial interests in Syria — among them electric machinery, chemicals, metal fabrication, TV production, hospitality, farming, car rentals and ice cream production — many acting as fronts for businesses controlled by the president’s brother and enforcer, Maher al-Assad.
Hamsho was outside Syria when Assad fell, but returned in early 2025. Videos and photos circulated on social media, including by the independent media outlet Daraj, found that he was under the protection of general security officers under the command of the new Syrian government, a fact that provoked intense criticism by activists angered by an Assad crony living openly in Damascus under state protection. Hamsho even went so far as to sue one activist for defamation after the photos were circulated, but dropped the lawsuit under pressure.
Hamsho’s fortunes symbolize the dilemma facing Syria’s new rulers. He is sanctioned internationally yet protected at home, in a sense both rehabilitated and despised, a figurehead of the post‑Assad economic reset, which critics fear may simply replace one elite with another.
The broad thesis of the Reuters investigation is that Syria’s economic restructuring is being carried out in the shadows, led by figures close to al-Sharaa, such as his brother Hazem, who accompanied him on a trip to Saudi Arabia, and a sanctioned Australian man called Abraham Succarieh. In the process, the economic committee leading the restructuring has reached deals with tycoons like Hamsho to reappropriate a significant share of their assets in exchange for immunity from prosecution and the ability to continue operating.
The Reuters investigation alleged that Hamsho and another pro-regime stalwart and sanctions alumnus, Samer Foz, had surrendered a large portion of their assets in exchange for immunity. Hamsho reportedly handed over around 80% of his commercial assets, valued at more than $640 million, and was left with around $150 million, while family members kept their companies.
A senior official challenged this claim to New Lines, saying no deals had been finalized yet, but acknowledged that some are in advanced stages of negotiation.
“The allegation that $1.5 billion was collected from businessmen is entirely false. As of the date the article was published, no settlements have been finalized,” the official told New Lines. “While some negotiations are indeed in advanced stages, none have been concluded. Once any settlements are officially completed by the government, formal statements will be issued with further information.”
The official said any such deals would not protect Assad-era magnates implicated in war crimes. “Reuters insinuates that in exchange for settlements, the tycoons are getting amnesty that ‘risk angering Syrians seeking justice.’ This is false. What’s happening is, in fact, a form of accountability, specifically for financial crimes and corruption,” the official said. “These settlements do not grant immunity for any other crimes committed against the Syrian people. Those are separate matters, and the pursuit of justice in those cases continues. Real accountability takes time, careful investigation and due process. Rushing these processes risks undermining the justice people are rightly demanding.”
The government also took issue with the characterization of the committee overseeing the economic reconstruction as a shadowy group of gun-toting rebels answering only to their noms de guerre and guided by a “Machiavellian” ethos, saying the investigation read more like a “political thriller.”
“It seeks to portray Syria’s economic restructuring as a clandestine operation run by shadowy actors, rather than a necessary effort to stabilize a devastated country under immense pressure,” the official said. The official pointed to the formal presidential decree establishing the committee, which includes the names of its officials and is publicly available. The list does not include Hazem al-Sharaa and Succarieh. Reuters said that the president’s brother oversees both the committee and a newly established sovereign wealth fund, and that Succarieh is the leader of the committee, while a former Hayat Tahrir al-Sham official called Abu Abdelrahman has veto power over Central Bank decisions. The government denies these claims. Succarieh, the official said, is an adviser to the committee and all decisions are made by state institutions: nobody has such power over the Central Bank.
The government also outlined its broader aims in pursuing settlements with Assad-era businessmen, saying it had offered many of them the option of either going through the courts or settling directly with the committee, after a detailed investigation into their links with the former regime and their assets and how these were acquired, the official explained. In many cases, the magnates had initiated contact with the state.
“While the state is committed to recovering what is owed, it is also mindful of avoiding unnecessary economic disruption,” the official said. “The objective is not to dismantle businesses, but to allow them to continue operating, keep employees in place, and support the broader economy. This approach reflects a balance between accountability and economic stability.”
This aligns with the Reuters investigation’s finding that the government struggled with the dilemma of whether to conduct laborious and complex financial crimes investigations against wealthy individuals familiar with Syria’s courts, which are still staffed with many Assad-era judges, or simply seize the assets and nationalize them, potentially spooking investors.
“It goes without saying that many businessmen tied to the Assad regime became enormously wealthy through illegal means, including by financing Assad’s war machine in order to protect and expand their profits through corrupt and unlawful practices,” the official said. “A committee like this was essential to recovering at least part of those funds and redirecting them toward the public good.”
The official acknowledged that the companies operated outside the bounds of legality and fair competition, sometimes even directly funding regime atrocities, buying contracts with bribes, and monopolization, among other forms of malpractice. They also pointed to state contracts and concessions offered to entities linked to war crimes, including institutions affiliated with Hezbollah, Iran and Russia.
What to make of this mess? It’s clear that Syria needs more accountability and transparency as it pursues its transition against a backdrop of endless challenges to the recovery. The country is not rebuilding something as anodyne as a wartime economy — it has to rebuild a society traumatized by five decades of relentless and systematic inhuman cruelty and oppression.
There are strong arguments for both accountability and pragmatic compromises. Many of these business magnates were, in fact, complicit in the destruction of their fellow Syrians, whether through war profiteering, directly funding militias, or augmenting and benefiting from the pervasive corruption that turned the country into a fiefdom of the Assads and their associates. Allowing them to play a role in a transitional Syria also risks the revival of elements of the former regime conspiring against the country’s new rulers, much as Egypt’s short-lived attempt at becoming a democracy was waylaid by the so-called “felool” or remnants of the edifice built by Hosni Mubarak.
And yet there are also strong arguments for maintaining stability in the economy and allowing a semblance of normalcy to retain know-how and provide assurances to investors, both private and state-backed, that Syria will follow the rule of law and avoid a sort of economic de-Baathification that could plunge the country into chaos.
This tension between accountability and pragmatic compromises with former regime loyalists was palpable during a recent visit to Damascus. According to transitional justice activists speaking to New Lines, the issue was a key source of disagreement during their discussions with the president and top officials.
One civil society leader said: ”They told us: ‘We are not stopping you from filing criminal court cases against these individuals. This is a separate process.’”
Activists are concerned that settlements might allow some prominent figures from the Assad era to avoid broader accountability, arguing that settlements should complement rather than replace full judicial proceedings.
Government officials counter by highlighting the structured process they have established: The individuals are given a choice either to face formal court proceedings or pursue negotiated settlements directly with the committee. These settlements, officials emphasize, are solely for financial crimes and do not grant immunity from prosecution for other offenses, including human rights abuses.
No matter how this process continues to unfold, it’s a delicate transition for the fragmented country. Though there is plenty of international literature on how transitional justice can bolster a sense of national cohesion, there is no precedent or best practice in the Arab world that can guide Syria’s new government.
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