(Zaman Al Wasl)- The French authorities have arrested the former spokesman for the Jaysh al-Islam group in Marseille over torture and war crimes charges, judicial sources told Le Figaro on Friday.
Majdi Mustafa Ne’ma (nom de guerre: Islam Alloush), 32, who was in France on an Erasmus visa, was arrested in Marseille on Wednesday. After 48 hours in police custody, he was brought before a Parisian judge who put him under investigation for acts of torture, war crimes and forced disappearance.
The French move came upon complaints by three NGOs, FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights), SCM (Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression) and LDH (The Human Rights League of France).
Jaish al-Islam was formed in 2011 in Douma, the key town of the Eastern Ghouta suburbs near the capital.
The indictment opens "the way to the first judicial investigation into the crimes committed by the armed group," the NGOs said joint statement.
Jaych al-Islam group is also suspected of the kidnapping of the Syrian lawyer and journalist Razan Zeitouna, director of the Violations Documentation Center in Syria along with her husband Wael Hamada and two other colleagues on December 9, 2013 from the center office in Douma.
Zaman Al Wasl
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