Syria: French national Sabri Essid to stand trial for genocide and crimes against humanity

Safin HAMID / AFP

A hope for justice for Yezidi victims

  • In an order issued on 8 October 2024, the investigative judges of the Paris War Crimes Unit decided to send Sabri Essid, alias Abou Dojanah al-Faransi, to trial.
  • The French jihadist, presumed dead in Syria, is accused of genocide and crimes against humanity, as well as complicity in these crimes, committed against Yezidi women and children.
  • The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the French Ligue des droits de l’Homme (LDH) and Kinyat welcome this decision and hope that Sabri Essid’s trial will bring justice to his victims and shed light on the crimes committed by the Islamic State against the Yezidi population in Syria and Iraq.

Paris, 9 October 2024. The indictment of Sabri Essid, alias Abou Dojanah al-Faransi, before the Paris Criminal Court paves the way for a trial regarding the crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity committed by French nationals, members of the Islamic state, against the Yezidi population in Syria.

"Given the absence of an investigation by the International Criminal Court, national courts are currently the only avenue for justice available to the Yezidi victims who have suffered horror at the hands of ISIS jihadists, including French nationals", said Bahzad Fahran, founder of the NGO Kinyat, which has collected thousands of testimonies from Yezidi survivors.

"This decision is the result of a judicial process initiated in 2016 by the FIDH and Kinyat to ensure that the crimes committed by members of the Islamic State against the Yezidi population are classified as international crimes and not only terrorism", said Clémence Bectarte, lawyer for FIDH and the civil parties.

Sabri Essid is accused of having committed, between August 2014 and over the course of 2016, serious bodily or mental harm constituting genocide, acts of enslavement, imprisonment, torture, rape, persecution and other inhuman acts constituting crimes against humanity, committed against Yezidi women and children. He is also accused of complicity in these crimes committed during 2015. A warrant for his arrest was issued by French courts on 11 February 2020.

Justice for Yezidi women and children

After publishing a report in 2018 and engaging in extensive advocacy work to French authorities, FIDH and its member and partner organisations, LDH and Kinyat, provided the French authorities with information directly incriminating Sabri Essid. A judicial investigation was opened on 25 October 2019 on the basis of this information. FIDH, LDH and Kinyat have actively contributed to this investigation and are assisting several Yezidi victims in these proceedings. These women have bravely agreed to testify before French courts, denouncing Sabri Essid’s role in the sexual crimes committed against them, which constitute crimes against humanity and genocide.

"This could be the first trial of its kind before the French courts, and a major step forward in the fight against impunity for the worst international crimes", explains Patrick Baudouin, lawyer for the LDH.

Sabri Essid is presumed dead in Syria. However, in the absence of evidence certifying his death, French courts have jurisdiction to try him, as is already the case in many terrorist trials.

In December 2016, the prosecutor’s office opened a "structural" preliminary investigation aimed at documenting the crimes committed against the Yezidi community and other ethnic or religious minority groups by the Islamic State.

Read more