France tries Syrian Islamist rebel ex-spokesman on war crime charges
Paris, Apr 29, 2025 -A Syrian Islamist rebel ex-spokesman went on trial in
France
on Tuesday under the principle of universal jurisdiction, accused of complicity in war crimes during Syria's civil war.
As his trial opened, Majdi Nema, 36, told the court in Paris there was no evidence to back charges against him.
French authorities arrested Nema in the southern city of Marseille in 2020, after he travelled to the country on a student exchange programme.
He was detained and charged under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows states to prosecute suspects accused of serious crimes regardless of where they were committed.
This is the first time that crimes committed during Syria's civil war have been tried in France under the universal jurisdiction.
Nema, better known by his nom-de-guerre of Islam Alloush, has been charged with complicity in war crimes between 2013 and 2016, when he was spokesman for a Syrian Islamist rebel group called Jaish al-Islam.
He has however said he only had a "limited role" in the armed opposition group that held sway in the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus during that period.
Jaish al-Islam was one of the main opposition groups fighting Bashar al-Assad's government before Islamist-led fighters toppled him in December, but it has also been accused of terrorising civilians in areas it controlled.
Recruiting children?
Nema, who faces up to 20 years in jail if found guilty, has in particular been accused of helping recruit children and teenagers to fight for the group.
His arrest came after rights groups, including the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), filed a criminal complaint in France in 2019 against members of Jaish al-Islam for their alleged crimes.
It was the FIDH that discovered Nema was in France during research into Jaish al-Islam's hierarchy and informed the French authorities.
Born in 1988, Nema was a captain in the Syrian armed forces before defecting in 2012 and joining the group that would in 2013 become known as Jaish al-Islam.
He told investigators that he left Eastern Ghouta in May 2013 and crossed the border to Turkey, where he worked as the group's spokesman, before leaving the group in 2016.
He has cited his presence in Turkey as part of his defence.
Nema travelled to France in November 2019 under a university exchange programme and was arrested in January 2020.
Disappearances
The defendant was initially indicted for complicity in the enforced disappearances of four activists in Eastern Ghouta in late 2013, including prominent rights defender Razan Zaitouneh, but those charges have since been dropped on procedural grounds.
Jaish al-Islam has been accused of involvement in their abduction, though it has denied this.
France has since 2010 been able to try cases under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which argues some crimes are so serious that all states have the obligation to prosecute offenders.
The country's highest court upheld this principle in 2023, allowing for the investigation into Nema to continue.
A previous trial in May last year of Syrians charged over their actions in the war took place because French nationals were the victims, rather than under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
A Paris court in that trial ordered life sentences for three top Syrian security officials linked to the former Assad government for their role in the torture and disappearance of a French-Syrian father and son in Syria in 2013.
They were tried in absentia.
Syria's conflict has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more from their homes since it erupted in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.
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