"The origin (of the fortune) is completely legal," he said.
Rifaat Assad fled into exile after a failed 1984 coup attempt against his brother, then-President Hafez Assad, and lives mostly in France, which awarded him the Legion of Honor. He tried to take power again in Syria in 2000, when his brother died, but the ruling party closed ranks around Bashar, whose forces are now fighting a civil war with a fractured opposition. Bashar Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons against civilians and unleashing his military's might against entire towns and cities.
Rifaat Assad leads one of the groups organized against Bashar and has put himself forward as a possible transition leader.
But he, too, has a reputation as a strongman. Human rights groups say Rifaat led crack army units in an assault that crushed a 1982 uprising in Hama, Syria. The death toll reportedly topped 20,000, a figure never officially confirmed.
Rifaat has denied any role in the Hama massacre, which he said was ordered by his late brother, Hafez. He has also been linked to the 1980 killings of hundreds of prisoners as well as Syrian army abuses in Lebanon in the 1970s and early 1980s. And he has been accused of turning a blind eye to criminality, including drug deals and car thefts in Lebanon.
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Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten contributed to this report.