Inside Assad's abandoned home: Damning documents, wedding photos and children's notes
Sky's Dominic Waghorn is one of the first foreign journalists to be given access to the Assad family home. Inside were mementoes abandoned in a hurry - presents the children had made at school, holiday photographs and countless boxes for jewellery, antiques and designer goods.
Wednesday 11 December 2024 18:37, UK
We've seen lots of the Assads' palace, but in an upscale neighbourhood of Damascus we found their family home, where they actually lived.
What we discovered inside was staggering. This was clearly where the dictator's British-born wife Asma loved to be, her inner sanctum where she stored her treasures.
The looters had got there first, the place was ransacked, but in Asma's personal storage room and boudoir, the floor was covered with countless boxes for jewellery, antiques and designer goods.
But what we saw revealed the life of luxury she and her family led while her husband was orchestrating the murder of hundreds of thousands of his people, who were living in abject poverty.
Syria latest: Israel launches '350 airstrikes on Syria in 48 hours'
On the lower floor, envelopes of damning documents. Among them bank records in Asma's maiden name, for staggering sums of money.
In interviews, the first lady of Syria insisted the Assads lived a middle class life. Few were fooled, but the extent of that fraud is becoming clear.
The Assads had clearly fled in a hurry. In this, the Assads' family home, we found where Asma kept her cherished mementoes of family life - all of them left behind.
There were presents her children had made for her at school, family photographs of the Assads on holiday, underwater photos of the tyrant of Damascus swimming and windsurfing.
Read more from Sky News:
18-year-old jailed for 'holiday romance' with 17-year-old
Cineworld to shut six more cinemas - here's where
On one shelf we found the photographs of the day Asma and Bashar got married. She looks adoringly into his eyes. He had brought her to Damascus from her life in London to a new one in Syria.
A life that would bring her untold wealth fortune and power but ultimately see her forced to flee the country in disgrace.
The question for Syrians will be, what happened to all her and her husband's millions?