When British citizen Saeed Farhat found out that Syrian President Ahmad Al Shara would be visiting London in March, he knew he had to send him a message.
Saeed's father had been shot dead south of Damascus by a masked gunman in July 2025. His family home had been occupied, allegedly by a member of the Syrian internal security forces who had taken control following the fall of the Assad regime seven months previously.
Saeed wanted to press Syrian officials for justice. So he rode a hired bike and followed the President’s delegation through London.
It was the latest episode in a quest for accountability for his father's death that has brought Saeed threats, travel bans and asset seizures in Syria.
“I don't have a day-to-day life any more,” Saeed told The National in an interview. “I am completely destroyed – mentally, emotionally, and physically. I thought I was trying to save my father from prison. I did not realise I was trying to save him from death.”
Ahmed Farhat was killed days after he was released without charge following six months in detention. While he was detained, the family's home, cars and belongings were seized by the security forces, according to legal documents, emails, video and picture evidence and interviews conducted by The National.
Son of victim Ahmed Farhat
The case raises questions about the rule of law in Syria and the ability of authorities to resolve disputes and address allegations through the courts rather than allowing extrajudicial killings to prevail. Since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, the country’s former rebel authorities have struggled to contain a rising number of revenge killings and kidnappings.
The Syrian government has repeatedly stressed its commitment to the rule of law. In late December 2025, state media quoted the Justice Ministry as saying that institutions would “not tolerate any violation of the law”, which applied to everyone “regardless of their status or affiliations”.
But international monitors continue to describe challenges to meeting those pledges. In March, a UN commission on Syria said it had raised concerns with the government over allegations of “continuing serious violations across the country” and underlined the “urgent need for comprehensive reform of the security sector and the judiciary”.
Saeed, a British citizen who lives in London, has spent the past year seeking justice for his father, who was 66 at the time of his death. He believes his father's killing is linked to a financial dispute with an acquaintance who used a relative, a commander in the security forces in southern Damascus, to take revenge on the family. The commander planned to take control of Ahmed's assets and used the financial dispute as a means to this end, Saeed believes.
The founder of a video production company in Britain, Saeed grew up with Palestinian refugee status in Syria in the Yarmouk refugee camp south of Damascus. He left for Britain to study film and media before the crackdown on protests against the Assad regime in 2011, which spiralled into civil war. Saeed claimed asylum and obtained British citizenship in 2017.
Saeed said his family was involved in distributing aid in the Palestinian refugee camps, leading to questions about ties between his father and a Palestinian faction. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC), one of the main Palestinian armed groups operating in Syria, said they had given weapons to his father for safekeeping. The family denies any formal ties to the group and says these were handed over to the state.
The arrest
Ahmed Farhat was a property salesman who had achieved a measure of wealth in Syria. The family owned shops that they rented out, as well as the family home, comprising two villas and cars. He had residency in Germany, according to a residence permit and driving licence seen by The National, as well as videos that show him on family trips to the country. But he saw no reason to leave Damascus after the Assad regime fled in December 2024.
In the Assad regime's final months, the family acquaintance had demanded $10,000 from him, saying it was owed for a door installation job completed in 2010 – a decade and a half earlier. The two men met in the presence of witnesses and eventually agreed that no money was owed.
But after the Assad regime fell, the family acquaintance renewed his demands for the cash.
If Ahmed did not pay, the man said he would have his relative in the internal security forces lock him up. Ahmed said he did not owe the money and refused to pay, according to his son's account of events.
The very next day, security forces came for Ahmed. He was detained at the Mazzeh branch of the political security apparatus, one of Syria's multitude of law enforcement agencies.
“Our lives came to a standstill,” another relative of Ahmed told The National, asking not to be named for fear of reprisals. The relative also confirmed details of the account provided by Saeed.
Determined to secure his father's release, Saeed travelled to Damascus. It was the first time on Syrian soil in more than 15 years, and it was not the country that he had left. In interviews and notes shared with The National, he details many trips between government offices in the Syrian capital.
He and his brothers were able to visit their father once while he was in detention and were shocked by what they saw: a scrawny, elderly-looking man who could not focus.
“He was in a terrible condition – I couldn't believe my eyes,” Saeed said. “It still hurts me more than the actual death. I remember going to scream at the Ministry of Justice. I wanted to get him out because I knew he was innocent.”
He said his father was not officially served with any charge, and the 66-year-old was not taken before a judge at any point.
In a complaint to the Justice Ministry in May 2025, Saeed wrote that his father was detained “without being able to appoint a lawyer or representative before the judicial authorities”.
In an attempt to secure his release, another of Ahmed's sons met with the family acquaintance over the payment he had demanded. A receipt dated March 2025, seen by The National, shows a payment of €4,000 ($4,550), which Saeed said the acquaintance accepted and promised to speak to his relative, the internal security forces commander, to secure Ahmed's release.
But nothing happened. “My father remained detained, and by that time [the commander] had already moved into the family villa and taken control of it, along with another nearby property, farms around the villa, my father’s car, and his personal belongings,” Saeed said.
The commander allegedly accused Ahmed of killing protesters and handing them over to authorities during demonstrations against the Assad regime, a claim the family denies. The accusations were relayed by an official within the security apparatus, Saeed said. It remains difficult in Syria to establish who is complicit in ties with the former regime or who is breaking the law within the current security systems.
Little concrete information is available about the security commander, whose identity is known to The National. He is believed to have lived in northern Idlib province during the Assad era, before returning to Damascus when the city fell to the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham group, led by now President Ahmad Al Shara. He took up a senior security role controlling areas south of the capital. His name appears on numerous social media posts accusing him of stealing property. The National was unable to verify these accounts.
A second relative said Ahmed did not support the Assad regime and he had only built relationships with the former government through his business activities in property and by helping to provide aid to Palestinian refugees in Syria.
“The situation in Syria under Bashar Al Assad’s regime was such that no one with a job of that scale could manage without connections; he had to have connections because there were so many issues,” the relative said.
“The job could be 100 per cent above board, but the local council, for example, if they could find any excuse to hassle him, they’d hassle him without a second thought. So, he had a network of connections that benefited his work.”
An anonymous news article released at the time by a Palestinian advocacy group, Group 194, claimed without citing sources that he had been accused of “extortion and arbitrary arrests” in Yarmouk camp. Ahmed's family vigorously denies those allegations, citing that he was released without charge from detention without appearing before a judge.
“It is not true, and it was proven when he was released,” Saeed said. “My dad did not have that reputation.”
Saeed possesses a document dated February 5, 2025, from the PFLP-GC. It confirms that his father had “no official link” to the group and that his role was limited to co-ordinating aid convoys from Europe.
The group had a presence in Yarmouk camp, where Ahmed, a Palestinian refugee in Syria himself, had helped distribute aid. The document also says that the group had given Mr Farhat its weapons “to prevent them from being stolen and for handing them over to the security forces”. Saeed says his father had handed over those supplies from the PFLP-GC in December 2024, as part of a countrywide campaign in the post-Assad era to collect arms that had been floating around the country during the former regime.
A separate document signed by 11 local business people and community figures says that Ahmed was known for working in property and for his “noble morals” and had “no connection or affiliation with the defunct former [Assad] regime”.
Contacted by The National, one of the signatories confirmed that he knew Ahmed. “He was kind and caring with me, may he rest in peace,” the man said in a WhatsApp message. “I don't know anything else.”
In other documents, two aid organisations that provided humanitarian supplies for Palestinian refugees in Syria confirmed that Ahmed had worked for them as a co-ordinator. His work involved “communicating with the former regime, which imposed numerous constraints on relief campaigns,” the Malmo-based Swedish Aid Convoy group said in a letter dated February 4, 2025. The Farhat family collected these documents, then handed them over to the political security apparatus as evidence disproving allegations against their father, Saeed said.
Saeed himself has no political content on his social media. His Instagram account mostly shows photos of him working on film shoots and occasionally posing with celebrities, including Lady Gaga. One post from December 2024 mentions Syria. It shows Saeed with his best friend Anas, who he said was “murdered by the brutal regime” a few days following their last meeting in 2013. In 2012, one of Saeed's siblings posted on Facebook about the death of a former classmate who, independent reports say, defected to the then-Syrian rebels against the Assad regime. “May you rest in peace,” the post reads.
After six months in detention, Ahmed was released last summer. A Justice Ministry release paper dated July 3, 2025, seen by The National, ordered the end of his detention and the release of all seized assets.
But the house and other belongings were not returned to the family – and that was not the end of the story.
The assassination
On July 8, a few days after he was freed, Ahmed submitted a request for the release of his seized assets to the deputy director of Interior Minister Anas Khattab’s office, a copy of which was seen by The National.
He was shot dead the following day at about 3pm in the Babila area of southern Damascus, near the family’s home.
A relative who was 200 metres away at the time described hearing gunfire and running to find Ahmed on the ground, covered in blood. He had been shot eight times by a masked man on a motorbike. He was taken to a hospital in the Al Zahera area of Damascus, but did not survive. He was buried in the graveyard in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in southern Damascus.
“This happened about a year ago, but when I recall the details of this incident, it's as if it’s happening right in front of me,” the relative said.
The commander continues to occupy the family’s home in Babila, which he seized during Ahmed's detention, Saeed and the second relative said.
“There are two villas, not just one. He [the commander] is in control of the big one, and the small one he’s given to a sheikh he knows, his mate,” the relative said. “The sheikh, his wife and his kids go swimming, eat and walk around.”
The commander uses the property “for his own personal interests and his personal relationships with the sheikhs,” he added.
In his complaint to the Justice Ministry last May, Saeed described how the main villa, registered in the name of one of his brothers, who is also a UK citizen, was seized by the commander “with all of its contents, without any official legal steps”. Shops in Damascus belonging to the family were later seized, they say, although they do not know who is currently collecting rent from tenants.
The family alleges that there has been no transparent and impartial investigation into the killing. Most efforts to raise the issue with the Syrian government have fallen on deaf ears or been blocked by the security officials allegedly involved, they claim.
“My first request for the Syrian government is to open a transparent investigation into the murder of my father, and then the theft of our assets, and to hold those who are ruining the image of the law in Syria to account,” Saeed said.
According to Saeed and the second relative, judicial authorities in southern Damascus are investigating the murder, but the area is under the control of security officials allegedly directly involved at least in Ahmed’s detention and asset confiscation, and at worst in his assassination.
That has left the family with little hope that the case will be properly investigated. Attempts by the attorney general’s office to move the case file to authorities in central Damascus were unsuccessful, Saeed said.
To complicate matters, in February, a body known as the “illicit gains committee” ordered the “precautionary seizure” of the entire Farhat family’s assets in Syria, according to a Justice Ministry decision memo seen by The National.
The body was set up by Mr Al Shara’s government to recover funds and assets allegedly acquired through corruption under the former regime, but it gave no reason for its order against the Farhat family.
The order was issued after Saeed and one of his brothers posted Instagram videos highlighting their ordeal.
“This came around one year after my father’s arrest and around seven months after his death,” Saeed said. “Until then, there had been no such action against the family. For that reason, we believe the timing strongly indicates retaliation for our attempts to go public.”
The illicit gains committee did not respond to a request for comment.
Saeed understands that the whole family has also been subject to a travel ban since February, although they discovered this through a friend employed at Damascus airport, not by official notification. He also says he has received death threats warning him not to return to Syria, relayed through third parties in southern Damascus, complicating any future efforts to follow up on the case.
The Syrian Justice Ministry did not reply to a request for comment.
The Syrian Interior Ministry said that the “victim's family is aware of all the details of this case”, without responding to detailed questions posed by The National.
The London chase
When news broke that Mr Al Shara would be visiting London in March, Saeed seized the opportunity.
He rented a Lime bike and followed the Syrian delegation through the streets, determined to hand over a dossier documenting his father’s death and the confiscation of the family assets.
After trying his luck to no avail outside No 10 Downing Street, where Mr Al Shara was meeting with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, he followed the Syrian President’s delegation between meetings and five-star accommodation.
“I kept following them throughout the whole day on a bicycle until I got to the hotel where they were staying,” Saeed said.
“I spoke to many people whom I found in the hotel and whom I recognised from videos and photos who were very close to the President. The delegation was very helpful, they were polite, they were very nice, and they listened to me. They took the file, and they promised me that it would land in ministers’ offices.”
Among the Syrian delegation was Musa Al Omar, a journalist close to the Syrian government.
Al Omar was “very nice and respectful” and promised to raise the case with Interior Minister Mr Al Khattab, Saeed said. “He promised that he would deliver the file to the highest senior officials with the President.”
Mr Al Omar did not respond to a request for comment from The National.
Saeed also met Ayman Al Hamwieh, a department head at the Economy Ministry. In a written WhatsApp message to The National, Mr Al Hamwieh said he had submitted the documents Saeed handed to him in London to the Justice Ministry and that the family would have to follow up through their legal representatives.
'Devastating circumstances'
Saeed is also calling on the British government to raise the family’s case with Syrian officials. A trove of email and text message exchanges seen by The National between Mr Farhat and senior officials at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) shows that the British authorities are aware of the case and that Saeed had repeatedly raised his concerns with British officials, both before and after his father's killing.
In a letter dated January 2, 2026, former Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, Hamish Falconer, described Saeed's “devastating circumstances, including the detention and subsequent murder of his father.”
Saeed had emailed FCDO officials in May 2025 after travelling to Syria to try to secure his father’s release, laying out his fears that the senior security commander allegedly involved in his father’s arrest and who had occupied the family villa would take revenge against him or his father.
An unsigned response from an FCDO email address offered verbal support for the Farhat family’s situation but said the ministry was “not in a position to offer specific advice on how best to protect yourself in Syria” and reiterated travel advice warning against visiting the country.
UK Middle East minister
In a letter dated November 12, 2025, to Saeed's local MP, Rachel Blake, a Labour politician, Mr Falconer said the British government had “committed to raising our awareness of Mr Farhat’s case with the Syrian Government and making it clear that we consider it a fundamental rule of law issue with which the government needs to engage”.
That includes an “expectation” that Damascus “will hold all perpetrators to account”, Mr Falconer wrote. Because Ahmed Farhat was not a British national, the UK “cannot request any further formal investigation”, he added.
In the January 2 letter, also to Ms Blake, Mr Falconer said the UK’s special representative for Syria had “raised this case when having broader conversations around the rule of law” with Syrian officials on a visit to Damascus. “Syrian officials noted our interest without commitment or comment,” he wrote.
Saeed said he was “grateful” for the support offered by the British government, including a meeting in October following his release of a video on social media about his father. But he wants officials to keep raising the case with Syria.
“By raising awareness of the specifics of our case, they are not only helping my family as a British family, but they are also helping the Syrian government identify those perpetrators and hold them to account, so eventually it can lead to stabilising the country,” he said. “That's what the UK government said its goal in Syria is.”
In response to detailed questions, an FCDO official told The National that they would “not comment on individual cases”.
“We regularly raise the importance of the rule of law and justice with the Syrian government,” the official added. “These issues were discussed during Mr Al Shara’s recent visit to the UK.”
‘Rule of law for everyone’
Saeed said friends and acquaintances have told him that the family’s case will not be resolved without payment of bribes. That is something he refuses to do.
“We've been blackmailed by lawyers,” he said, referring to attorneys solicited to represent the family to try to solve the case. One asked for a payment of at least $300,000 for the return of the family’s assets, Saeed said.
“Why? I don't get it. It's driving me crazy. I'm like, 'why is nobody hearing us'?” he said.
“If you want to investigate me, if you want to investigate my Dad, please do. But don't let anyone blackmail us, and say that you need to pay money to get justice for your dad or to get your assets back.”
The family feel they will not be able to move on until their property is returned to them and Ahmed's killer is held to account.
“The shock is still with me to this day,” the second relative, who requested anonymity, said. “Even now, before I go to sleep at night, I sit down and rest my head on the pillow, and I start thinking, ‘Oh God, how did this happen?’”
For Saeed, the case is bigger than his family. It could be a test of post-Assad Syria’s ability to hold wrongdoers to account. “After 15 years of what we went through, I just want to see that the rule of law is being applied to everyone.”
