The appeal trial of Rifaat Al-Assad, sentenced in June 2020 to four years in prison for laundering the embezzlement of public funds, opened on May 5 before the Paris Court of Appeal. It will be a question of “returning 'ill-gotten gains' to the populations of the countries of origin, the first victims of the corruption of their leaders”.

Like other major cases of ill-gotten gains, this trial against Rifaat Al-Assad opens up the possibility of putting an end to the impunity enjoyed until now by certain foreign leaders. In these cases, it is above all the desire to one day see the property confiscated returned to the populations in the countries of origin that has motivated the associations' civil action suits.
The appeal trial of Rifaat Al-Assad illustrates the importance of the legal mechanism for the restitution of assets resulting from corruption, soon to be discussed in the Senate, underline, in a forum in the "World", the heads of the NGOs Sherpa, Transparency International France and CCFD-Terre solidaire.
The three NGOs were at the initiative, from 2007, of an unprecedented legal saga by having enabled the initiation of public action against foreign leaders and their entourage leading a luxurious lifestyle in France in total discrepancy with the official income they receive in their countries.