Four Seasons Hotel Damascus — Home of Suspicious Deals of Assad's Regime

Since 2011, the five-star Four Seasons Hotel in the center of the Syrian capital, Damascus, has been transformed into a semi-permanent residence for missions of UN agencies, NGOs, and diplomats visiting Syria.

The "giant" hotel has become a place for making deals under humanitarian pretexts between international organizations and the Syrian regime and its institutions and senior personalities, worth millions of dollars.

The Four Seasons Hotel alone has been a multimillion-dollar window for the Syrian regime in foreign currency, especially after it became a "safe spot" for officials of aid groups and diplomats visiting Syria by virtue of their work following the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in March 2011.

The hotel also provided them with a space to spend exorbitant amounts of humanitarian allocations on personal parties and events away from their official work in the interest of the regime's economy that is internationally punished for suppressing the revolution.

 

New Scandal

What is new is what the World Health Organization confirmed on October 22, 2022, that its Office of Internal Oversight Services is investigating allegations of corruption against its office manager in Syria, Akjamal Magtimova.                      

Staff of the World Health Organization's office in Syria have leveled corruption charges against their director, citing her mismanagement of millions of dollars distributed to Syrian regime officials as gifts.

This included computers, gold coins, and expensive cars for the country's Ministry of Health during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an investigation by the Associated Press published on October 20.

Among the complaints made by the staff, Magtymova, a citizen of Turkmenistan, pressed for contracts to be signed with Syrian regime officials and politicians.

Magtymova, who has led WHO operations in Syria for nearly three years, was charged in the investigation with holding an $11,000 concert at the Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus during the coronavirus pandemic that began in 2020, as well as paying "questionable contracts" for medicines and transportation to Syrian regime officials.

Other complaints accuse the WHO of hiring incompetent relatives of Syrian officials to work in international aid programs, especially since some officials are accused of human rights violations in Syria.

It also accused the UN official, Magtymova, of secretly meeting with the Russian military in Syria, as well as maintaining close contact with Syrian officials.

It is known that Russia intervened militarily in 2015 to save the head of the regime Bashar al-Assad from falling in the face of the popular revolt against him, and its planes destroyed Syrian cities, tilting the military cuff in his favor.

Moscow has also played a key role as a permanent member of the Security Council and has veto power over it, restricting the passage of most international aid to Syria through the Assad regime.

Russia has insisted on delivering that aid through the Syrian regime to opposition areas, which has been a clear "tool of political blackmail."

 

Suspicious Hotel

Notably, the budget of the WHO country office in Syria is about $ 115 million in 2021, which opens the door to the question of how these funds are spent and how did the regime benefit from them?

Nearly 90 percent of Syrians now live in extreme poverty, with 13 million people dependent on humanitarian aid, and nearly seven million Syrians displaced from their homes to mostly tented camps outside areas controlled by the Assad regime.

In the face of this, the revelation of the corruption of the UN official and the lavishing of money on the Syrian regime re-highlighted the Four Seasons Hotel as a key witness to the supply of funds to the Syrian regime treasury in hard currency from the pockets and budgets of international organizations.

The Four Seasons Hotel, strategically located as the capital economic nerve in central Damascus, was inaugurated in 2006 by the head of the regime, Bashar al-Assad, and its first owner, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

The opening took place as a branch of the Four Seasons hotel chain, which Bin Talal owns around the world and includes 17 hotels in the Middle East and North Africa.

But the Saudi businessman sold his hotel stake to Samer Foz, a prominent Syrian businessman close to Bashar al-Assad, in March 2018, Britain's Financial Times reported.

The sale took place during the detention of Alwaleed Bin Talal and a number of Saudi princes and business leaders at the Ritz-Carlton in the capital Riyadh, as part of the "fight against corruption" led by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during 2017 and 2018, and was later released after giving up large parts of their money.

The price of the deal between Alwaleed and Al-Fawz, who has the largest stake in the hotel, remained ambiguous, but in that period, the Four Seasons Hotel Beirut was sold for up to $115 million.

After the Syrian revolution, the Four Seasons Hotel was popular with personalities and representatives from UN agencies, aid groups, and diplomats coming to Syria, and it continues to this day.

Samer Foz owns the largest stake in the hotel, an internationally sanctioned person accused of controlling the property of displaced people by buying their land, which is enough for UN organizations to be accused of corruption and financial assistance to the Syrian regime, according to observers.

Suspicious and illegal deals between the Syrian regime and international organizations have often been leaked inside that hotel, and large and illogical funds have been spent solely on logistics.

 

Money Gatherer

According to a report published on July 18, 2022, by the Washington-based FDD Research Foundation, UN agencies have spent US$11.5 million at the Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus during 2021 alone, while the amount has reached US$81 million since 2014.

The report shared the 2020 annual statistics on UN procurement, which show that UN agencies purchased $244.5 million worth of goods and services in Syria for the said year.

UN agencies also paid US$9.3 million to the Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus in 2014-2015, according to an investigation by the British newspaper The Guardian published on August 29, 2016.

A third of the hotel is owned by the Syrian Ministry of Tourism, which is sanctioned by the European Union. The United Nations has justified that the hotel is the safest place for UN staff to stay in the Syrian capital.

A report by the US NGO Defense of Democracies published in July 2021 confirms that UN agencies have spent $14.9 million in 2020 on housing and other services at the Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus, and the total spending at the hotel has reached $70,100,000 since 2014.

On June 11, 2019, the US imposed sanctions on Samer Foz, including his upscale Four Seasons hotel in Damascus, for allegedly enriching Bashar al-Assad.

Since the hotel became a residential base for UN staff in Syria, Assad's opponents have always raised questions, chiefly where does the money paid by international staff go?

Members of UN staff deployed in Syria send daily reports from their Four Seasons residence to the Secretariat in New York.

On more than one occasion, they complained of difficulties that prevented them from performing their mission to the fullest, something practiced by the Syrian regime's agencies to restrict their movement and put them under extortion, and donations were disbursed to them from UN funds.

Also, according to sources from the Four Seasons Hotel, United Nations staff spend their time holding short meetings where they are provided with a private space internet.

The rest of the hours are spent by the staff in entertainment, especially since it provides them with all kinds of food and drinks, so that food and meat not available in Damascus come to the hotel from the capital Beirut.