Lhe trial of a French jihadist, already convicted in Syria, will begin on Monday February 7 before a special assize court in Paris. Arthium Aloyan, of Armenian origin, had joined Syria in April 2015, to fight there alongside the Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.
Arrested in the Turkish city of Hatay in August 2016, he was sentenced to four years and two months in prison by the Syrian courts. At the end of this sentence, he was deported to France. He will be tried there, from Monday, for participation in a terrorist criminal association. His trial will be closely watched by lawyers, who fear that the man, now 33, will be tried and sentenced twice for the same crime. A double penalty which would contravene the legal principle of “non bis in idem”, which prohibits punishing someone twice for the same facts.
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But the investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal ruled in August 2020 by refusing to apply the “non bis in idem”. “Decisions rendered by foreign jurisdictions only have the authority of res judicata when they relate to acts committed outside the territory of the Republic. […] The acts partially committed in France escape “the principle of” non bis in idem “, justified the chamber of the instruction in its judgment.
According to her, Arthium Aloyan was indicted in France, because suspected of wanting to prepare one or more attacks there. “Consequently”, decided the chamber of the instruction, “the exception of res judicata abroad cannot justify the cancellation of the indictment of Arthium Aloyan and his placement in pre-trial detention”.
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“Foreigners Brigade”
For the prosecution, the accused is known to the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) for having converted to rigorous Islam in 2014 “to the chagrin of his family of Yazidi origin”. Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking minority who follow a pre-Islamic religion, have been victims of terrible abuses in areas controlled by jihadists from the Islamic State (IS) group, such as rape, kidnapping, slavery and treatment inhuman.
Father of two children born in 2008 and 2010, Mr. Aloyan left his home in Moulins (Allier) in April 2015, leaving his family three letters, including a will, in which he declared that he wished to die in the land of Islam and bequeath his few possessions to his family.
In Syria, he joined the al-Nosra Front, learned to handle a Kalashnikov, participated in surveillance missions with his weapon and grenades, the prosecution supports. During his interrogations, he admitted to having participated in exchanges of fire and to having been wounded in combat. In August 2016, he was arrested in Turkey in possession of “coded documents” and videos relating to the manufacture of improvised explosive devices based on chemicals and electronic diagrams allowing their remote detonation.
Upon his return to France on February 5, 2019, Arthium Aloyan was found carrying a text written in French advocating armed jihad. In this text the term “Guraba” appeared twice. The investigators made the link with the Salafist group “Ghuraba”, or “foreigners’ brigade”, led by the French jihadist Omar Diaby, alias Omar Omsen, suspected of having convinced many French people to join Syria.
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According to concordant sources, Omar Diaby has just been released by the group linked to Al-Qaeda which has been detaining him for a year and a half. He is currently in the Idleb region, one of the last Syrian areas controlled by the IS group.