France to try Syrian national for committing war crimes
DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – A French newspaper reported that a Syrian former spokesperson of Jaysh al-Islam armed group, Majdi Nema, Syrian national, is scheduled to be tried before the Special Criminal Court in Paris in April 2025.
The trial of Nema will take place before the Special Criminal Court in Paris, under the international jurisdiction of the French judiciary, from April 29 to May 23, 2025.
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.
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.
Two years ago, the Investigative Chamber of the Court of Appeal in Paris rejected all the appeals invoked by the defense team of the accused of war crimes in Syria.
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.
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.
On Feb 19, a French court dropped on Feb. 17 charges against Nema.