Before she was the wife of Bashar al-Assad, Asma Akhras enjoyed a privileged childhood in a terraced house in Acton, west London.
The daughter of a cardiologist and a diplomat in the Syrian embassy, she spent a few years after school working in international banking.
Then, when she was 25, Asma married the President of Syria and became the nation’s First Lady.
She stayed in that role for 24 years until last weekend, when her despotic husband was overthrown by a rebel alliance following a long and bloody civil war.
The dramatic end to the dictator’s regime has put a spotlight on the unusual life of Asma al-Assad.
Who is she, and how did she go from a quiet London suburb to a palace in Damascus where brutal war crimes were arranged and directed?
Asma was born to Fawaz and Sahar Akhras in 1975. Fawaz is a London-based cardiologist, and Asma’s two brothers Feras and Eyad followed him into medical careers.
According to the Times, Asma called herself Emma while studying at Twyford Church of England High School in Acton.
She took her A-levels at Queen’s College in Marylebone and completed a degree in computer science at King’s College London.
From there, she carved out a successful early career at JP Morgan and may have gone on to a lucrative life in finance. But a very different future was coming her way.
It was in London that she got to know Bashar al-Assad, who had moved to the British capital in 1992 to train as an eye doctor.
Two years later, his elder brother died in a car crash and he became the heir apparent for his father Hafez, who had ruled over Syria since 1971.
When Hafez died in June 2000, Bashar claimed the presidency following an election where he received 97 percent of the vote. In December that year, he and Asma married.
A Reuters profile of the First Lady suggests the Assad side of the family is not keen on her. Asma’s family is Sunni Muslim, while her husband belongs to the minority Alawite sect.
She projected a glamorous image during her time in the presidential palace, wearing Christian Louboutin shoes and Chanel dresses.
In 2011, Vogue magazine published an article headlined ‘A Rose in the Desert’, which described Asma as ‘a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement’.
But shortly after publication, the Arab Spring took hold in Syria and Bashar al-Assad embarked on a horrifying campaign of violence to crush the uprising.
There were questions over whether his apparently liberal wife might be able to influence him into toning down the brutality.
However, leaked emails later showed her joking about being ‘the real dictator’ in their household. Asma became a figure of hate for many in Syria.
Asma and Bashar al-Assad have three children – sons Hafez, 23, and Karim, 19, and daughter Zein, 21.
Hafez, named after his paternal grandfather, studied mathematics at Moscow State University in Russia.
The family is reportedly now back in Russia, having fled Damascus after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) overthrew the Assad government.
Earlier this year, Asma revealed she had been diagnosed with leukaemia, after previously undergoing treatment for breast cancer in 2018.
This morning, cabinet minister Pat McFadden said there had been ‘no contact or no request’ for her to return to the UK.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if Asma had a right to come back, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said: ‘I couldn’t comment on her individual rights.
‘I don’t know her exact circumstances, so I don’t know what would happen in those circumstances, but it’s not something that’s been raised with us.’
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