Majdi Ne’ma, the Syrian former spokesperson for the mercenary group "Jaysh al-Islam," surprised the French court yesterday by declaring that he had sought to expose the violations committed by the faction. He claimed he had presented himself as a whistleblower against what he described as "the faction that fought the regime" in the Damascus countryside.
Ne’ma, known as "Islam Alloush," is being tried on charges of complicity in committing war crimes between 2013 and 2016, including the recruitment of minors in Syria. He faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Ne’ma (36 years old) told the Paris court that he, along with others, tried to file a lawsuit against the mercenary group "Jaysh al-Islam" in Turkey, but was officially rejected, despite working on the case for a year and a half.
He added, "I was working on this case from Turkey before heading to France."
The mercenary "Alloush" had arrived in France in late 2019 through a student exchange program and was arrested in Marseille in December 2020. The trial is based on the principle of "universal jurisdiction," which allows France to prosecute perpetrators of major international crimes regardless of where they occurred.
Data from the South Korean government and election watchdog shows the number of votes cast in a neighbourhood in a tightly contested district did not exceed its population or the number of eligible...