Trial of leader of Army of Islam begins in French courts

Former commander of Army of Islam, Majdi Nehme, went on trial in Paris today. He was tried in France on war crimes complicity charges in Syria between 2013 and 2016 based on the universal jurisdiction of the French courts.

Nehme has been held pretrial since January 2020 and now faces a criminal court accused of complicity in war crimes and of aiding in the planning of such crimes. He is accused particularly of enlisting children or young men into the ranks of "Ashbal al-Islam" and training them for combat.

He faces the possibility of imprisonment for up to 20 years.

This is the second Syrian war crimes trial in France, following a secret trial in May 2024 against top officials in the Syrian regime convicted of their complicity in the enforced disappearance and assassination of two French-Syrian nationals.

Majdi Nehme defected in November 2012 from the forces of the Assad regime to join the commander and founder of Liwa al-Islam, Zahran Alloush, who subsequently became Jaysh al-Islam in 2013. The organization took over Eastern Ghouta, northeast of Damascus, in 2011 and is alleged to have committed war crimes, including against civilians.

He came to France in November 2019 as a student at the Institute for Research in the Arab and Muslim World of Aix-Marseille University.

Majdi Nehme was arrested in January 2020, a few months after a complaint filed in France against Jaysh al-Islam, and indicted by a judge in the Crimes Against Humanity Division of the Paris Court.

He was then remanded to the Criminal Court on charges of complicity in enforced disappearances. As part of the Army of Islam, he was charged with the kidnapping of four human rights activists on December 9, 2013, including Syrian lawyer and journalist Razan Zaitouneh. They have not been found yet.

The Army of Islam members, however, had these charges dismissed by the Paris Court of Appeal in November 2023 on procedural grounds, although in its decision the court upheld that "the Army of Islam has to be held responsible for the disappearance" of the four activists. The decision was subsequently upheld by France's highest court, the Court of Cassation.

The court's decision will be published on May 27.

T/S

ANHA