Five men, including the killer of the Brussels Jewish museum Mehdi Nemmouche, will be tried in Paris from February 17 to March 21, 2025 for the kidnapping, aggravated by abuse, of seven Westerners including four French journalists in Syria in 2013-2014, according to a notice of hearing consulted Monday by AFP.
The five accused, two of whom are presumed dead, will be tried by the Paris Special Assize Court for kidnapping, acts of torture and barbarism, in an organized gang and in connection with a terrorist enterprise - in this case the State organization Islamic.
Three of them, suspected of having been jailers of the hostages, are in pre-trial detention: Mehdi Nemmouche, 38, nicknamed Abou Omar and sentenced in Belgium to life imprisonment for the attack against the Jewish museum in Brussels in 2014;
the Frenchman Abdelmalek Tanem, 34 years old and convicted for having joined Syria in 2012 as well as the Syrian Kais Al-Abdallah, 40 years old.
A hostage executed
Abdelmalek Tanem and Kais Al-Abdallah disputed the facts.
Two other suspects were allegedly killed in Syria in 2017: Salim Benghalem, considered the head of detention, and the Belgian Oussama Atar, responsible for managing the hostages and sentenced by default in June 2022 to life imprisonment for having ordered the attacks of 13 November 2015 in the Paris region.
However,
“without formal proof”
of their death, the anti-terrorist magistrates decided in May 2023 to refer them to justice, issuing an arrest warrant against them.
French journalists Didier François, Édouard Elias, Nicolas Hénin and Pierre Torres were kidnapped in June 2013. They shared their detention with two humanitarian workers from the NGO Acted, the Italian Federico Motka and the British David Haines, as well as with Spanish journalist Marcos Marginedas Izquierdo, also kidnapped in 2013.
All were released during 2014, except David Haines who was executed on September 13, 2014. The former hostages recounted during the investigation the beatings, abuse, deprivation, constant psychological pressure and mock executions inflicted by their jailers.
Their testimonies were decisive in identifying the suspects.