Dutch authorities Tuesday arrested a Syrian man suspected of having been a security chief for the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra extremist groups during Syria’s grinding civil war, prosecutors said.
“It is suspected that from his position at IS he also contributed to the war crimes that the organization committed in Syria,” the National Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.
The man is suspected of holding “a managerial position in the security service of IS” from 2015-2018, prosecutors said.
For two years prior to that, he allegedly carried out the same work for Jabhat al-Nusra. Prosecutors say he held both functions “in and around the Yarmouk refugee camp” south of the Syrian capital, Damascus.
The suspect applied for asylum in the Netherlands in 2019 and later settled in Arkel, prosecutors said. He was scheduled to appear before an examining magistrate in The Hague on Feb. 20.
The 37-year-old suspect is believed to have held senior positions in the security services of the terrorist groups IS and Jabhat al-Nusra between 2015 and 2018 during the Syrian war, said the Dutch public prosecutor’s office. He claimed asylum in the Netherlands in 2019.
The public prosecutor’s office said that the man is suspected of contributing to war crimes committed in Syria.
He was arrested in Arkel, a town in the Dutch province of South Holland, and will be brought before an examining magistrate in the Hague on Jan. 20.
