Businessman George Haswani (right) with Syrian officials and cleric, early 2014
George Haswani, a prominent businessman close to the Assad regime, has been sanctioned by the European Union for buying oil for Damascus from the Islamic State.
Haswani was one of seven individuals and six entities added to the EU’s blacklist on Friday. They will have their assets frozen in the EU and are banned from travel to any of its 28 countries.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said:
We have…agreed to target individuals supplying oil to the regime, including George Haswani, a middleman buying oil from [Islamic State] on behalf of the regime. This listing gives yet another indication that Assad’s “war” on ISIS is a sham and that he supports them financially.
The EU introduced sanctions on the Assad regime, including an embargo on oil sales, in May 2011.
Haswani’s company HESCO, operates a gas plant in Tabqa in central Syria, which was overrun by the Islamic State in a deadly attack in August 2014. European officials believe the installation is now run jointly by the jihadists and regime personnel, supplying areas of Syria still controlled by Damascus.
Haswani also featured in the news in March 2014 when he helped negotiate the release of 13 nuns who were taken by rebels from Yabroud, north of Damascus, during battles for the city.
The businessman reportedly started in the oil business as an assistant manager at a refinery before studying in Russia. Building on connections developed there, he established HESCO with licenses from a Russian gas and oil company, also delivering spare components to Russian military vehicles and Russian oil wells. The company expanded to include oil pipelines in Algeria and Sudan and completed the gas processing plant in central Syria, as a subcontractor to the Russian company Stroytransgaz.
Haswani’s wife is reportedly close to the Assad family.
