1 ene 2006 año - SYRIA: Bell advises Asma Al-Assad

Descripción:

Bell Pottinger worked for Asma Al-Assad in 2006 to set up a First Lady’s Office.

The Independent reported that Bell Pottinger spent six months setting up the press office before their business together ended.

In interviews, Lord Bell has repeatedly stressed that he never worked for the Syrian regime but for “Mrs Assad”: “All I did for her was set up a First Lady's office. She wanted to have a communications office rather like Laura Bush has or had at that time, and she wanted to have a communications director."

Bell said in his interview:

"Our relationship with the Assads was brought about because he brother worked for me, a young man. He was working in my department. He was a nice enough chap, not quite bright. Not that clever. I know a man called Wafic Saïd very well who was originally a Syrian, who had for various political reasons become a Saudi. His son was drowned in the King of Saudi Arabia's swimming pool and he made him a Saudi citizen. He was a banker and financier.
He said to me one day "Do you know the Assads?" I said "No". Asma had just married Bashir. He was a dentist or ophthalmic surgeon... He was an ophthalmic surgeon. Anyway, whatever he was, I never met him so I had nothing to with it. Wafic introduced me to somebody else, who was a heart doctor, who was a very nice man, who was her father. Doctor Assad, who was a world renown heart surgeon. He knew everybody. He'd done different people's hearts, different people's problems and he said to me "Would you meet with my daughter?" So I met Alma Assad, she was a very beautiful woman, very stunning to look at. You sat in her glow feeling rather sort of pleased with yourself."

Heading the account was Stephen Sherbourne "who had done a similar job for Mrs. Thatcher, along with other things including being political secretary, handled politics as well as the visible functions".

"I got bored with the conversations. So I stopped doing it. I was only being paid a small amount of money and I was having trouble getting money out of her."

" I never apologized for helping Asma Assad. I had a legitimate role and I did perfectly well. I did a perfectly good job with it. And I just stopped doing it because I got bored with it. There's no secret about it. I never made it a secret."

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