Businessmen with such pull usually operate as front men either for the Assads or some high intelligence officer.
A day after winning the last leg of a long lawsuit, Makarem, who heads the Future Institute for Education and whose father ran the official Syrian news agency "SANA" at one point, was arrested on October 19, 2008 by the Security Services(Moukhabarat). He was then released to be re-arrested again on November 15, 2008.
According to NOHR-S, the Moukhabarat is investigating not only Makarem but his family and relatives in an effort to gain enough knowledge it can turn over to the businessman for him to appeal his case against Makarem in Syrian courts.
Under this rule, one of the job pre-requisites of the Moukhabarat, in fact, is to collect information, under torture, from a victorious party in a civil lawsuit it then hands over to the loser, in the same lawsuit, to utilize in a court of law to clutch victory from the jaws of defeat. This is Syria under the Assad family. Corrupt to its core and unjust to an infinite degree of madness.
