Assad family live in Russian luxury as Bashar ‘brushes up on ophthalmology’

Family friend, sources in Russia and Syria, and leaked data help give rare insight into life of dictator's reclusive household

In 2011, a group of teenage boys spray-painted a warning on to a wall in their school playground: It's your turn, Doctor." The graffiti was a thinly veiled threat that Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, a London-trained ophthalmologist, would be next in the line of Arab dictators toppled by the then raging Arab spring.

It took 14 years, during which 620,000 were killed and nearly 14 million displaced, but eventually the doctor's turn came and Assad was deposed, fleeing to Moscow in the middle of the night.