France acquits Syrian of kidnapping human rights activists charges
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – A French court dropped on Feb. 17 charges against Majdi Nema, a 35-year-old Syrian, former spokesperson for Jaysh al-Islam armed group, pertaining to the kidnapping of four human rights activists in Syria in 2013.
However, Nema will be sued on charges of enlisting children or teenagers between 2013 and 2016 and for participating in a criminal conspiracy with a view to preparing war crimes, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro.
Jaysh al-Islam is suspected of kidnapping four human rights activists, including a Syrian lawyer and journalist Razan Zeitouneh on Dec. 9, 2013. The kidnapped people were never found.
Nema, aka Islam Alloush, was a sergeant in the armed forces of the Syrian government, then became one of the senior officers and the official spokesperson of Jaysh al-Islam.
He has always claimed to have been only an uninfluenced spokesperson for the aforementioned armed group.
Jaysh al-Islam, formerly known as Liwa al-Islam, is a coalition of Islamist rebel units involved in the Syrian Civil War and took control over Eastern Ghouta, northeast of Damascus, in 2011.
The complaint against Nema lodged in June 2019 came after more than three years of documentation presented by the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) regarding the crimes committed by Jaysh al-Islam.
According to the SCM, the indictment included execution without trial, systematic kidnapping, and torture against men, women, and children, the targeting by the group of those suspected of colluding with the Syrian “regime” as well as ordinary civilians, accused of not strictly applying the Sharia law imposed by the group, or because they belonged to religious minorities.
Nema moved to France in 2019 through a regular visa issued by the French embassy in Istanbul, Turkey, as part of a scholarship to conduct research on the armed conflict in Syria. However, the French police arrested him in January 2020.