Paris Tribunal considers power to prosecute Syrian national Islam Alloush
ERBIL, KRG, Iraq (North Press) – The Paris Court of Appeal, France, is considering the power of the universal jurisdiction to prosecute war crimes committed in Syria in the case of Majdi Mustafa Ne’ma, also known as Islam Alloush, a Syrian citizen arrested in France.
Majdi Ne’ma, born in 1988, was a captain in the Syrian army. He defected in 2012 and became a spokesman for the Army of Islam, a Syrian armed opposition faction formed at the outbreak of the Syrian conflict.
Majdi Ne’ma was arrested in January 2020 in Marseille, southern France on charges of war crimes, torture, complicity in enforced disappearances and crimes against humanity between 2013 and 2016.
In July 2020, Ne’ma’s two defense lawyers, Raphael Kempf and Roman Ruiz, submitted a petition to drop the charges against him, denying that the French judiciary had the universal authority to prosecute him.
This made the French tribunal discusses if it has the authority to prosecute a war crime suspect who committed crimes in non-French territories.
According to Agence Frence-Presse (AFP), the decision of the investigation chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal would be of a great importance since the Cassation Court has recently considered that the French jurisdiction does not have the authority to consider the case of another Syrian national who was a soldier of the Syrian government forces and was charged of complicity in crimes against humanity.
The French Supreme Court relied on the principle of “double count” enshrined in August 2010 law, which stipulates that crimes against humanity and war crimes must be recognized in the country of the suspect that France intends to prosecute.
However, like multiple of other countries, Syria does not recognize these crimes and has not ratified the Rome Statute, which stipulated the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Ne’ma, in particular, and his faction, in general, are accused of the abduction of the human rights lawyer Razan Zaitouneh, her husband Wael Hamada, co-founder of the Local Coordination Committee (LCC), and two of their colleagues, the political activist Samira al-Khalil and human rights lawyer Nazem al-Hammadi (the Douma 4) on December 9, 2013.
Several people testified against Majdi Ne’ma before the French prosecutors, and a number of the people accused Majdi of torture and child recruitment.
But the accused man denies the all facts, saying he left Eastern Ghouta in May 2013, seven months prior to the kidnappings attributed to him, and he headed to Istanbul in Turkey.
Majdi Ne’ma said he returned to his studies while continuing his activity as a spokesman for the faction. In 2016, he gave up this activity and left the faction in 2017.
Majdi Ne’ma’s defense lawyers, in their petition, highlighted that the French tribunal cannot prosecute their client for complicity in cases of enforced disappearance, because power of the universal jurisdiction in such cases “applies only if the crime was committed by government agents or persons acting with the state’s permission, support or approval.”
The defense lawyers said the French judiciary cannot prosecute Ne’ma because France is not the country of his usual residence, and that he was in France on a student residency for a few months, and his arrest came days before leaving the country.