A Syrian Tale: Passion, Power, Assassination

A Syrian Tale: Passion, Power, Assassination
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN and KATHERINE ZOEPFPublished: November 3, 2005DAMASCUS, Syria, Nov. 2 - It was a love story that captured the imagination of many Syrians: a man and a woman defied her father, eloped and lived happily ever after. But for many people it was not the romance that made the story compelling, it was how the tale spoke to power.
Agence France-Presse - Getty ImagesAsef Shawkat, the brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad, in 2000. He is a suspect in the assassination of a Lebanese politician. The woman was Bushra al-Assad, the daughter of President Hafez al-Assad, and the man, Asef Shawkat, was to become Syria's head of military intelligence.
Mr. Assad - who was president from 1971 until his death in 2000 - and his oldest son, Basil, opposed the marriage of Bushra to Mr. Shawkat, a divorced father of five who was 10 years her senior. But after Basil died in a car crash and Bushra insisted, they eloped, and a decade later they have emerged as one of the most powerful couples in Syria, which poses a problem for the government now that Mr. Shawkat is a subject of an international murder inquiry.
"Anyone who could go into the home of Hafez Assad and take his daughter away without his permission has the power to do anything," said a television newscaster in Syria who has met Mr. Shawkat several times. The newscaster, who originally spoke on the record, called back later, agitated, and asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.
It is to a large degree because of Mr. Shawkat's position at the center of Syrian authority that the government finds itself backed into a corner by a United Nations investigation of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon.
With Mr. Shawkat a prime suspect, the question being debated here is whether Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father as president, would ever be willing or able to turn over his brother-in-law - with whom he is considered closely allied - for trial if asked to. His doing so, many Syrians and diplomats said, could lead to chaos in the intelligence services and the dilution of his grip on power by fracturing the unity of the family.
It is unclear what role, if any, Mr. Shawkat played in the assassination. The authorities here say that he and other Syrian officials are innocent and that they hope the United Nations prosecutor, Detlev Mehlis of Germany, does not recommend charges. But tensions are high, because the investigators have a witness who says Mr. Shawkat helped plan the murder and held the final planning session in his home.
A tall, broad-shouldered man often said to look like a young Saddam Hussein, Mr. Shawkat draws his strength from multiple sources. As head of military intelligence, he has the loyalty and support of Syria's most powerful, and feared, institutions. As an Alawite, he is a member of a religious minority that has guarded its monopoly on power for decades.
His wife, Bushra, is a power in her own right, part of the small ruling circle that includes her brothers Bashar, the president, and Maher, the head of the presidential guard. Mr. Shawkat was promoted to his present post by the president in February, the day after the Hariri assassination, but by many accounts he was effectively in charge of the intelligence apparatus long before.
After the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, diplomats and Syrians said, Mr. Shawkat was one of the president's main liaisons to intelligence agencies in the United States and in Europe and helped set up an American intelligence operation in Syria, which has since been shut down as relations between the two countries have soured.
A month ago, when the pressure began to grow on Syria in connection with the investigation, diplomats and a political analyst close to the president said Mr. Shawkat had been dispatched to France to try to cut a deal with the authorities there.
The analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said Mr. Shawkat went with two files, one with information that the government hoped would discredit one of the United Nations investigation's primary witnesses, and another offering the French a lucrative oil and gas deal. The effort, details of which could not be independently confirmed, did not succeed.
"He is clever, charismatic and deep," the analyst said of Mr. Shawkat. "He is very dangerous, but he is very pragmatic."
Faced with a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding Syria's full cooperation in the investigation, the government may soon have to decide if it will send Mr. Shawkat abroad for interrogation - and perhaps, if the evidence warrants it, trial.
"I don't know how they can survive that," Andrew Tabler, a Beirut-based researcher on Syria and Lebanon for the Institute of Current World Affairs, said of Mr. Shawkat's potential legal troubles.
Until this current crisis, Mr. Shawkat, with the support of his shrewd, ambitious wife, was seen as one of the few people who had the ability to stage a coup, though there was no evidence that anything of the sort was being planned.
He is well known around Damascus, where he is feared and admired. Among those who consider him a friend, some say it can be easier to ask for his help in getting projects done than to go through formal channels.
"The fascination of such people is that we all know that in one moment they could give you everything you wish for, or they could kick you into an iron box," the newscaster said. "They have fists of steel and ropes of silk. They have all sorts of power."
Mr. Shawkat comes from the northern coastal city of Tartus. Those who know him say he studied for a Ph.D. in history from Damascus University and worked his way up through the ranks in the military. They say he has simultaneously fashioned himself a military man and an intellectual. During the 1980's, people who know him said, he reached out to intellectuals and artists, hoping to build a network of friendships in those communities.
Mr. Shawkat's rise to the inner circle was far from smooth, and for a long time he was treated as an outsider. No one seems to know exactly when or how he met his wife, but it is common knowledge here that her oldest brother, Basil, who was being groomed to take over the leadership of the country, and her father were bitterly opposed to the marriage.
After Basil, the family enforcer, died in a car crash in 1994, the two eloped. Eventually the father sanctioned the marriage, Mr. Shawkat was welcomed in and he built a close relationship with one of the three surviving Assad brothers - Bashar.
In 1999, Mr. Shawkat was shot in the stomach and taken to France. According to an article that appeared in the Paris newspaper Libération in November of that year, Mr. Shawkat was shot by his brother-in-law Maher al-Assad, who at the time was a captain in the presidential guard.
It is impossible to verify the details of what happened that day, when the family was alone and Maher reportedly pulled a gun, but since then Mr. Shawkat has managed to consolidate his power with the help of his wife and the president.
"Asef Shawkat is a very strong man, and it's not just about the love story between him and Bushra," said a well-connected Syrian political analyst, who asked not to be identified for fear of arrest. "Shawkat was hated by Hafez and hated by Basil, and he's overcome that. He's very, very strong."
Through his influence and at the direction of the president, many people here said, the security services are less intrusive in people's lives than they once were, a measured distinction in what is still a police state.
People who have been interviewed by Mr. Shawkat, a euphemism for mild interrogation and intimidation, describe a man who is in many ways typical of those in his line of work, employing promises and threats - offering government jobs or cash rewards for compliance, or harsh treatment for resistance.
One person who was summoned to see Mr. Shawkat for activities that the government did not approve of, recalled being accused of accepting money from Israel and the C.I.A. and then being offered financial rewards from the government to stop. During the interview Mr. Shawkat yelled and spoke calmly, made literary references and ended the interview with a hug.
"I thought this is not the right time for me to stay in the country," said the person, who feared retribution if identified.