By Karam Shaar1
Maher Burhan Eddine al-Imam is a leading businessman with interests in Syria’s tourism, telecommunications, and real estate sectors. The EU sanctioned Maher on 17 February 2020 because “As General Manager of the regime‐backed Telsa Communication Group as well as of Castro LLC, and through his other business interests, Maher Burhan Eddin al‐Imam benefits from the Syrian regime and supports its financing and lobbying policy as well as its construction policy.”
Telsa Group is a conglomerate of businesses working in Syria’s telecommunications and reconstruction sectors. Four major companies form Telsa Group, and Maher had partial ownership in all four.3 However, on Maher’s Facebook profile, a chart of entities comprising Telsa Group includes more companies—such as Telsa Telecom and Telsa Rebuild—which are not found in the Syrian Gazette, suggesting they are direct subsidiaries of Telsa Group.
The EU’s official sanctions website listed Maher as a Syrian national born on 22 August 1978, without stating his place of birth. However, while he is a Syrian national, he was born in Kuwait on 05 October 1976, according to the publicly available Syrian Gazette, when he registered one of his companies (Concurrence for Pledges and Contractors LLC) and his Facebook profile. This further highlights the EU’s inability to acquire accurately even the basic information about sanctions targets, such as the date and place of birth.
Maher’s family is originally from Damascus. They still have a residence there, although they have long been expatriates in Kuwait, according to sources interviewed for this report.
Our research in local and global business registers shows that between 2012 and April 20244 Maher was a partial or full owner of fourteen companies in Syria.5 He also co-established two companies in Lebanon.6
Before sanctions, Maher was openly loyal to the Assad regime. He used his Facebook page and television interviews to express his staunch loyalty.
In addition to interviews on Syrian TV, there were photos of Maher with sanctioned Syrian state figures like Presidential Advisor Buthaina Shaaban, the Minister of Communications, the Minister of the Interior, and the Minister of Information.
In his statements, Maher quoted President Bashar al-Assad and offered him blessings and greetings on multiple occasions.
Maher’s Telsa Group worked closely with government institutions and exhibited sanctionable behaviors:
After 2017, in what seemed like an attempt to avoid being sanctioned, Maher did not personally participate in television interviews or show public support for the regime on his social media. This behavior continued after his sanctioning in 2020, which probably helped him make a case for being delisted. In fact, after exactly two months of being sanctioned, Maher appealed to The Court of Justice of the European Union (CURIA) on 18 April 2020, seeking an annulment of the decision. Along with his request for priority treatment and for his identification details to be anonymized, Maher demanded compensation from the Council of the European Union in three parts:
On 22 September 2021, the case was dismissed, and Maher was ordered to pay the court cost.
Unfortunately, the public case report published by the court states that “only the paragraphs of the present judgment which the Court considers it appropriate to publish are reproduced here.” The report lacks any argument or discussion related to the role Maher plays in the political economy of Syria. The published arguments covered only Maher’s appeal that “the time limit for the submission of an application for review and for observations was too short, and thus did not allow him to be heard in a meaningful and effective way.” Even if he submitted evidence exonerating him, CURIA’s reviews are conducted annually “rather than being analysed immediately.”
His Facebook posts since then focus on social events like birthday parties and weddings, as well as important moments in his life like traveling for Umrah, undergoing surgery, and his father’s death.
However, his companies have continued to promote the regime, even as recently as 2021.