Former Syrian ISIS security chief on trial in the Netherlands

Prosecutors allege Ayham S worked for the terror group between 2014 and 2018

Ayham S was arrested in January in the small town of Arkel four years after he requested asylum in the Netherlands. AFP

A Syrian man appeared before a Dutch court on Tuesday in a pretrial hearing after being accused of serving as an ISIS security chief in his home country between 2014 and 2018.

Ayham S, 38, with a black beard, T-shirt and tattoos on his upper arms, did not speak during the two-hour hearing at the Court of Rotterdam, which he attended with the help of an Arabic translator.

Prosecutors believe that he acted as an ISIS “security chief” in the Palestinian camp of Yarmouk near the Syrian capital Damascus.

The camp, which has been ravaged by fighting during the 12-year-long Syrian civil war, was stormed by ISIS in 2015 and retaken by government forces and allies in 2018.

Ayham S was arrested in January in the small town of Arkel, east of Rotterdam, four years after he requested asylum in the Netherlands, where he was living with his wife and children.

Dutch immigration services were criticised by local media after it emerged that Ayham S had been granted residency in 2019.

His trial comes on the heels of several other high-profile ISIS prosecutions in Europe as the civil war in Syria, where there is little hope that perpetrators of human rights abuses will be brought to justice, drags on.

A partial view shows the ravaged Yarmouk camp, south of Syria's capital Damascus in January last year. AFP

Ayham S has been charged with membership in ISIS with the aim of committing war crimes.

He has also been charged with membership in former Al Qaeda-affiliated group the Nusra Front with the aim of committing terrorist activities.

In Dutch law, pretrial hearings must take place every three months until a date is set for the trial. Experts and witnesses are questioned privately but may appear in court if requested.

Judges denied a request lodged by Ayham S's lawyers asking that he be freed from pretrial detention.

His legal team argued on Tuesday that evidence put forward by Dutch prosecutors was vague and anecdotal. They claimed that in one case, a witness mistook Ayham S for someone else.

Prosecutors built their case in part on a report submitted in June 2020 by a Paris-based NGO the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM).

Based on 11 testimonies, the SCM’s report claims that before joining ISIS sometime between 2014 and 2015, Ayham S was actively involved with the Nusra Front.

In a statement issued following his arrest earlier this year, the SCM said that he was responsible for a “wide range of grave violations, such as murder, kidnapping and torture, whose victims were activists, civilians and opponents of [ISIS]”.

The SCM said it prepared its report after receiving information from activists in southern Damascus. It has not publicly named the defendant.

Ayham S's lawyers were granted access to the report following Tuesday’s hearing.

Prosecutors also conducted their own investigation which included their own interviews of witnesses.

According to Dutch media, at least 10 Syrians have been sentenced by Dutch courts for war crimes perpetrated during the Syrian civil war.

In a similar case from last May, Dutch police arrested a 34-year-old Syrian accused of being a member of militia Liwaa Al Quds, which is affiliated with the regime in Damascus.