Majdi Nema, also known as Islam Allouch, only planned to stay in France for a few months. The Syrian had come as part of an exchange program at the Institute of Research and Study on the Arab and Islamic Worlds at Aix-Marseille University in the country’s south. However, he was arrested in January 2020, around two months after his arrival.
The former member of Jaysh al-Islam — the “Army of Islam”, or JAI for short, a Syrian coalition of rebel groups — is accused of “complicity in the war crime of enlisting minors and for participating in a group formed to prepare war crimes.” Nema was the spokesperson for JAI between 2013 and 2016.
Nema’s trial, which begins on April 29, will be the first to examine atrocities JAI is suspected of committing during the Syrian civil war, which started in 2011.
JAI is estimated to have had around 15,000 members at its peak. Its primary base of operations against the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad was the Syrian capital Damascus and eastern Ghouta.
During its campaign against the Assad regime, it is accused of kidnapping, torturing and executing people, as well as having used civilians as human shields.
Assad was overthrown after an offensive led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), another Syrian rebel group, last December. The dictator and his family are now thought to be in Russia.
‘Only then will Syria have a chance of a future’
Though it is unclear what role JAI currently plays and how many members it still has, Chloe Pasmantier, a lawyer with the France-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), one of the co-plaintiffs in the Nema case, says it is important that the group and its members be held accountable.
“The Assad regime committed most of the atrocities and crimes,” the human rights lawyer told DW. “But other groups must also be brought to justice for their crimes. Only then will Syria have a chance of a future.”
In 2010, France integrated the core provisions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court into its own national legal code. This allows it, in certain cases, to judge international crimes, including genocide and war crimes, even if they were committed outside of France. The case against Nema is possible because the accused, who’s normally resident in Turkey, was considered to have had a strong enough connection to France, because he was living there at the time of his arrest.
Marc Bailly, one of the lawyers for the civil parties involved, told DW that the case could have an impact on international law. “Even if these trials are still exceptions, they are necessary to prevent the impunity of tomorrow’s war criminals,” he said. Apart from the FIDH, the civil parties include the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, the Paris-based League of Human Rights and five individuals, who claim they are the victims of war crimes committed by JAI.
“For my clients, the defendant had a leadership role,” said Bailly. “Some of them also saw him in JAI prisons, where they observed him conducting military training for members of the group.”
Was Nema a key player?
But Nema’s lawyers deny that he played an important role. “He was the spokesperson for JAI with no strategic or military command. He didn’t plan any operations and only found out about them after the fact,” lawyers Romain Ruiz and Raphael Kempf told DW.
“Charges such as his alleged involvement in the disappearance of four people were already dropped by the [Paris] Court of Appeal at the end of 2023. The remaining charges will also show that he is innocent,” they added.
Nema, who is now 37, said he joined JAI at the beginning of 2013. He said that from May of the same year he operated from Turkey, where he lived until he went to France. He said that he had studied political science there. He claims he could only have played a minor role because he left Syria in 2013.
However, according to the Paris Court of Appeal, witnesses saw Nema in eastern Ghouta in 2014 and 2015. Furthermore, the court dropped the charges relating to the forced disappearance of individuals because, according to French interpretation of international law, only state groups and actors can be charged with this crime. JAI was not a state group or actor. The plaintiffs believe that JAI was involved in the abduction of four human rights defenders.
For Jeremy Sarkin, a law professor at Nova University in Lisbon, Portugal, who specializes in human rights, such an interpretation is too restrictive. “France is a party to the UN Convention [for the Protection of All Persons from] Enforced Disappearance, and should apply it to non-state perpetrators too,” he told DW.
But he conceded that the fact that the case was now in court was positive. “The UN Security Council was unable to set up an ad hoc international tribunal on Syria because Russia and China blocked it. Courts in France, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland are thus key to the fight against impunity.”
Sarkin pointed out that many of the cases were based on the work of various UN commissions and bodies, such as the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism – Syria, which had “compiled a list of 4,000 suspected war criminals, 50 of whom have already been brought to justice.”
‘Too early’ to judge cases in Syria?
Nema’s lawyers, however, describe the attitude of the French judiciary as “imperialist.” Ruiz and Kempf said that “the former colonial power of France should not be judging cases from Syria. There are judges and functioning courts on the ground.”
Sarkin disagrees with that, as does Syrian human rights lawyer Mazen Darwish. The Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, which he founded, is a co-plaintiff in 28 cases around Europe.
“It is actually still too early to judge such cases on the ground,” Darwish told DW. “But the new Syrian government must change that and bring cases of atrocities to court. Otherwise, the people of Syria will take the law into their own hands. And our country will never be able to find peace.”
This article was originally written in German.
