The beard is thinner. And, in the images he posts on social networks, he has swapped the mesh for the university gown. He presents himself as “A security and terrorism researcher. Specializing in Syria ”, enrolled at Karabuk University, Turkey, and collaborating at the Toran Study Center in Istanbul. He also studied in Budapest. Majdi Mustapha Nameh, 30, was arrested in Marseille on January 29. He would be present on the territory for three months under an Erasmus visa as part of a university exchange with the University of Aix-Marseille, according to the sheet he published two months ago on a forum online.
A veteran, leader and spokesperson for Jaych Al-Islam ("Army of Islam"), the most powerful Islamist rebel group in the Damascus region, those familiar with the war in Syria know it as the War of Syria. '"Islam Allouche" – in reference to the warlord Zahran Allouche. With a force of 20,000, this faction controlled whole swathes of the Ghouta region with an iron fist after eliminating its adversaries and taking over the resources of the territory, which had been besieged for seven years by the forces of the Syrian regime. Jaych Al-Islam has been regularly accused of committing crimes against the civilian populations who lived under his yoke from 2011 to 2018.
The arrest of the former spokesman of the Salafist group and his indictment for "acts of torture and complicity", "war crimes" and "accomplices of enforced disappearances", "Marks the start of the first judicial information concerning the crimes committed in Syria by the rebel Islamist group", welcomes the International Federation for Human Rights.
A group involved in the disappearance of Razan Zaitouneh
FIDH, the League for Human Rights, the Syrian Media Center (SCM) and the families of some 20 victims had filed a complaint in June with the crimes against humanity unit of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office. Jaych Al-Islam is particularly suspected of the disappearance of Razan Zaitouneh, kidnapped on December 9, 2013, a figure in the 2011 popular uprising and winner of the Sakharov Human Rights Prize awarded by the European Parliament. She had criticized human rights violations committed by all parties to the conflict.
"We have elements which lead us to believe that(Islam Allouche) was involved in this abduction ", says Mazen Darwish, lawyer and president of the SCM, who hopes that his arrest will allow "Know the truth about what really happened to Razan and his companions" kidnapped with her, Wael Hamada, co-founder of local coordinating committees, activist Samira Al-Khalil and lawyer Nazem Al Hammadi.
