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 of 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.

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