Majdi Nema, 35, is notably accused of having been complicit, between 2013 and 2016, in abuses against civilians and prisoners of war, the enlistment of minors and the enforced disappearances of four activists.
Two investigating judges from the Paris court ordered, on Wednesday July 19, the referral to the assizes for complicity in war crimes and enforced disappearances of Majdi Nema, a former spokesperson for the armed rebel group Jaysh al-Islam (JAI) , during the civil war in Syria.
The 35-year-old Syrian is notably accused of having been complicit, between 2013 and 2016, in abuses against civilians and prisoners of war, the enlistment of minors and the enforced disappearances of four activists, including the lawyer and Syrian journalist Razan Zeitouneh, according to the indictment order seen by AFP.
“We absolutely have no means to judge”, according to his lawyers
“This decision is, in our view, a continuation of what we have been denouncing for several months, namely that Majdi Nema is sent back to the Assize Court by virtue of a purely political desire to try in France the crimes that we absolutely have no way of judging”reacted his lawyers Romain Ruiz and Raphaël Kempf.
The Court of Cassation recognized, in June, to French justice a “universal competence” in two cases which concern crimes committed in Syria, including that of Majdi Nema. The Paris Court of Appeal upheld its indictment in April 2022, finding that Syrian law provided “by equivalence” several war crimes and offenses defined in the French penal code.
For Clémence Bectarte, lawyer for the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and civil parties, “this decision marks the culmination of several years of struggle to have the crimes committed by Jaysh al Islam recognized [Armée de l’islam] in Syria and the role played by its leaders in their commission”. FIDH, the League for Human Rights (LDH) and the Syrian Media Center (SCM), as well as family members of the disappeared persons had filed a complaint in June 2019 against JAI.
Based in Marseille since 2019
Majdi Nema, whose nom de guerre is Islam Alloush, had been arrested in Marseille, where he had settled in November 2019 to follow a cycle of conferences as a student at the Institute for Research on the Arab and Muslim World. (Iremam) from Aix-Marseille University. He was indicted on January 31, 2020 by the crime against humanity division of the Paris court, in particular for acts of torture and complicity, war crimes and complicity in enforced disappearances.
The Syrian, whose pre-trial detention was extended on July 12, has always refuted the charges, saying he was only a spokesperson “without influence”. But for the investigating judges, “there is no doubt that Majdi Nema holds a senior position in the ranks of JAI”.