Asma Assad tells friend: I'm a monster

Syrian president's wife tells friend she is 'a monster' after taking online personality test, according to leaked emails published by UK's Daily Telegraph

Ynet|Published: 03.24.12 , 08:51

Asma al-Assad, the British-born wife of Syria’s president Bashar Assad, told a friend that she was "a monster" after taking a personality test online, according to leaked emails that suggest she holds a cherished place in the leader’s inner circle, the UK's "Daily Telegraph" reported Friday.

According to the report, Azmi Mikati, the nephew of the Lebanese prime minister, received her email and told her he looked up the definition for the word "monster," telling Assad it means: "A person having qualities generally attributed to an angel, as beauty, purity, intelligence and kindliness".

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Last week, UK's Daily Telegraph published another email in which Asma told a friend that she was the “real dictator” in the family.

Meanwhile, as Syria's bloodshed deepens, the British-born first lady has become an object of contempt for many, a Marie Antoinette figure who shopped online for crystal-encrusted Christian Louboutin stilettos while her country burned.

The European Union slapped sanctions Friday on 36-year-old Asma, wife of Syrian president who for the past decade offered a veneer of respectability to one of the world's most opaque and ruthless dictatorships.

The European action - the latest punishment imposed by world leaders on Syria for its crackdown - bans her from traveling to EU countries and freezing any assets she may have there.

"She is one of the regime's deceptions," said Amer Mattar, a 26-year-old Syrian who recently fled the country because of the violence that has killed 8,000 people in the past year. "She is definitely part of this ugly formula in Syria."

A trove of emails - purported to be from the private accounts of Bashar and Asma Assad and published last month by London's Guardian newspaper - have helped unmask that deception. They appear to capture the first lady splurging on luxury goods as violence sweeps her country, placing orders for expensive jewelry, bespoke furniture, and a $4,200 vase from Harrods department store in London.