Former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has personal funds worth over £55 million deposited in an HSBC bank account in London, The paper i can reveal.

Banking sources say the account is part of £163 million that Assad, his family and his brutal regime’s allies have buried in British accounts.

The revelation led leading politicians and human rights groups to demand that the government seize tens of millions of pounds deposited into British bank accounts by Assad and his network.

Assad fled to Moscow after the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took control of Damascus, the Syrian capital, last weekend.

After the Assad regime violently suppressed anti-government protests in 2011, the dictator and his associates were subject to Europe-wide sanctions and their assets frozen.

Court documents from 2011 indicate that Assad held around £40 million in an HSBC account in London. Although the money was frozen due to British sanctions against his regime and the former dictator was unable to access the money, it continued to earn interest and is now worth more than £55 million.

As well as freezing the £163 million in assets, the government also levied £150,000 in fines for British companies that failed to comply with its rules. Sanctions regime against Syria.

Some are now asking ministers to use the powers given to them by Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 take full control of the money and return it to Syria once a new internationally accepted government is established.

Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: “After more than a decade of conflict in Syria, it is high time that the UK Government took decisive action to support the victims of the Syrian conflict and the Assad regime.

He added: “Since 2011, the government has reportedly frozen more than £163 million of assets belonging to Syrian individuals and entities under the Syria sanctions regime… And yet, shamefully, not a single penny of these funds was spent on helping Syrian victims. »

The Conservative shadow foreign secretary, Priti Patel, also called on ministers to act.

She said: “Assad and his cronies should not be able to benefit from these gains while living in exile in Russia.

“The government must use the full range of powers available to review assets held in the UK and reallocate them for the benefit of the Syrian people. »

The government has also frozen the assets of Assad’s uncle, Rifaat al-Assad, which include a six-storey townhouse in Mayfair, estimated to be worth at least £26 million.

Rifaat al-Assad was nicknamed the “Butcher of Hama” after ordering an indiscriminate bombing of the Syrian city in 1982, killing thousands in an attempt to quell an uprising against his brother, then Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. who was the father of Bashar al-Assad.

The money held in the UK by Assad and his family represents only a small part of the immense wealth he is said to have amassed during his rule in Syria, during which he is said to have killed around 500,000 people.

Assad is said to control around £12.5 billion in assets, including 200 tonnes of gold, homes around the world and a network of businesses spanning the Middle East and beyond.

Razan Rashidi, executive director of the international human rights group The Syria Campaign, asked ministers return money to Syrian people.

She said: “The millions deposited in British banks belong to the Syrian people and have been hoarded at the cost of so many lives.

“Many families live in painful uncertainty while waiting for information about their missing loved ones who have been detained for years. For them, justice must be done. These funds are urgently needed to meet the pressing humanitarian needs in Syria and should be spent there.”

However, despite growing pressure on the new Labor government to act, there is currently no legal framework to direct these funds to Syrian victims.

Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, added: “This money should be released for the benefit of the Syrian people.

“The money should be transferred, at the appropriate time, to a new Syrian authority…once a transparent, credible, legitimate and inclusive authority is established…and this money should be used for the benefit of all Syrians.” »

The call to return Assad’s funds to the Syrian people is also echoed by some Labor MPs.

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: “The UK should no longer allow itself to be used as the place where dictators and human rights abusers hide the wealth they have stolen from their own people.

“The government must act quickly to freeze Assad’s assets in our country and begin the process of returning this wealth to the Syrian people.”

A spokeswoman for Redress, a campaign group calling for financial compensation for the Syrian people, said: “The funds collected by states for violations in Syria rightfully belong to the Syrian victims who have no other ways to recover; If the British government retained the profits, it would mean indirectly profiting from violations in Syria.

The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) is the authority responsible for implementing and enforcing the UK’s financial sanctions on behalf of the UK Treasury.

Once a person or entity is sanctioned by the UK government, their funds and economic resources are immediately frozen by the person or organization, such as a bank, that owns or controls them.

But an asset freeze does not imply a change of ownership of the frozen funds or economic resources, nor are these confiscated or transferred to the Treasury or OFSI.

An HSBC spokeswoman said: “We do not comment on client relationships, even to confirm or deny the existence of a relationship. HSBC is committed to complying with all applicable sanctions resolutions and regulations in the jurisdictions in which we operate.

The government declined to comment.