On Tuesday, October 8, a trial was ordered before the special criminal court against the presumed dead French jihadist, Sabri Essid, Agence France-Presse (AFP) learned on Wednesday from a source close to the case. The man is accused of genocide and crimes against humanity against eleven Yazidi women and children in Syria between 2014 and 2016.
“The material acts committed by Sabri Essid were fully consistent with his adherence to the genocidal policy of the Islamic State that legitimized the purchase and resale of Yazidi women and children, their confinement, their reduction to a servile state, and the numerous violations committed against them. “say two investigating judges from the crimes against humanity unit of the Paris court, in their indictment consulted by AFP.
The two judges order that he be tried for genocide, crimes against humanity and complicity in these crimes committed between August 2014 and 2016 to the detriment of four Yazidi women and their seven children.
“In the absence of an investigation before the International Criminal Court, national justice systems, including the French one, are today the only area of justice available for Yazidi victims who suffered horror at the hands of Daesh jihadists. [acronyme anglais de l’organisation Etat islamique]including French nationals »Bahzad Farhan, founder of the Kinyat NGO, said in a statement.
Presumed dead since 2018
Sabri Essid, born in 1984 in Toulouse, is the son of a companion of the mother of Mohamed Merah, who in March 2012 killed three soldiers, three children and a Jewish teacher in Toulouse and Montauban. He joined the Islamic State (IS) organization in Syria in early 2014. He was initially a bodyguard for a senior IS executive, then became a member of Amniyat, the branch of IS responsible in particular for internal security and intelligence.
He has been presumed dead since 2018. As no official evidence of his death has been provided, French justice remains competent to try him in absentia. In June 2019, a preliminary investigation was opened against this man from Toulouse, suspected of rape and abuse of Yazidi women, facts that could “be analyzed as serious attacks on physical or mental integrity constituting the crime of genocide”the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) had specified.
Then, for the first time, the PNAT’s crimes against humanity unit, which had been investigating the crimes suffered by this religious minority for several years, opened a judicial investigation in October 2019 for genocide and crimes against humanity against Sabri Essid. Until now, French jihadists were only persecuted for crimes of a terrorist nature.
