France Tries Five for Holding Reporters Hostage in Syria  

Reporters Didier Francois and Edouard Elias. (EPA)
Reporters Didier Francois and Edouard Elias. (EPA)
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France Tries Five for Holding Reporters Hostage in Syria  

Reporters Didier Francois and Edouard Elias. (EPA)
Reporters Didier Francois and Edouard Elias. (EPA)

Five men went on trial in France on Monday charged with holding four French journalists hostage for ISIS in war-torn Syria more than a decade ago.

ISIS emerged in 2013 in the chaos that followed the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, slowly gaining ground before declaring a caliphate in large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq.

The extremists abducted a number of foreign journalists and aid workers before US-backed forces eventually defeated the group in 2019.

Reporters Didier Francois and Edouard Elias, and then Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres, were abducted 10 days apart while reporting from northern Syria in June 2013.

The journalists were held by ISIS for 10 months until their release in April 2014.

They were found blindfolded with their hands bound in the no-man's land straddling the border between Syria and Türkiye.

More than a decade later, jailed extremist Mehdi Nemmouche, 39, is among five men accused of their abduction at a trial to last until March 21.

Nemmouche is already in prison after a Belgian court jailed him for life in 2019 for killing four people at a Jewish museum in May 2014, after returning from Syria.

“I was never the jailer of the Western hostages or any other hostage, and I never met these people in Syria,” he told the Paris court, breaking his silence after not speaking throughout the Brussels trial or during the investigation.

All four journalists told investigators they were sure Nemmouche, then called Abu Omar, was their jailer.

Henin, in a magazine article in September 2014, recounted Nemmouche punching him in the face and terrorizing Syrian detainees.

Also in the dock are Frenchman Abdelmalek Tanem, 35, who has already been sentenced in France for heading to fight in Syria in 2012, and a 41-year-old Syrian called Kais Al-Abdallah, accused of facilitating Henin's abduction.

Both have denied the charges.

Belgian extremist Oussama Atar, a senior ISIS commander, is being tried in absentia because he is presumed to have died in Syria in 2017.

He has already been sentenced to life over attacks in Paris in 2015 claimed by ISIS that killed 130 people, and Brussels bombings by the group that took the lives of 32 others in 2016.

French ISIS member Salim Benghalem, who was allegedly in charge of the hostages, is also on trial though believed to be dead.



Russia and Ukraine to Hold First Peace Talks in Seven Weeks 

A security personnel stands guard in front of the Ciragan Palace before the third meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegations for peace talks in Istanbul, Türkiye, 23 July 2025. (EPA)
A security personnel stands guard in front of the Ciragan Palace before the third meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegations for peace talks in Istanbul, Türkiye, 23 July 2025. (EPA)
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Russia and Ukraine to Hold First Peace Talks in Seven Weeks 

A security personnel stands guard in front of the Ciragan Palace before the third meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegations for peace talks in Istanbul, Türkiye, 23 July 2025. (EPA)
A security personnel stands guard in front of the Ciragan Palace before the third meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegations for peace talks in Istanbul, Türkiye, 23 July 2025. (EPA)

Russian negotiators flew to Türkiye to hold peace talks with Ukraine on Wednesday, the Kremlin said, before what will be the first direct discussions between the warring sides in more than seven weeks. 

Russia played down expectations of any breakthrough at the meeting, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said this week should focus in part on preparing a summit between himself and President Vladimir Putin. 

"Naturally, no one expects an easy road. Naturally, this will be a very difficult conversation. The projects (of the two sides) are diametrically opposed," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. 

Previous talks in Istanbul on May 16 and June 2 led to the exchange of thousands of prisoners of war and the remains of dead soldiers. But those meetings lasted less than three hours in total and made no breakthrough towards a ceasefire or a settlement to end almost three and a half years of war. 

US President Donald Trump last week threatened heavy new sanctions on Russia and countries that buy its exports unless a peace deal was reached within 50 days. 

But three sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters that Putin, unfazed by Trump's ultimatum, would keep on fighting in Ukraine until the West engaged on his terms for peace, and that his territorial demands may widen as Russian forces advance. 

On Wednesday, Russia said its forces had captured the settlement of Varachyne in Ukraine's Sumy region, where Putin has ordered his troops to create a buffer zone after Ukraine mounted a shock incursion into Russia last year and held onto a chunk of its territory for months. Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield report. 

In recent weeks, Russian forces have launched some of their heaviest air attacks of the war, focusing especially on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. 

Ukraine has hit back with attacks of its own, and last month inflicted serious damage on Russia's nuclear-capable strategic bomber fleet by smuggling drones close to air bases deep inside the country. 

CONFLICTING DEMANDS 

Zelenskiy said earlier this week that the agenda for talks was clear: the return of prisoners of war and of children abducted by Russia, and the preparation of a meeting between himself and Putin. 

Putin turned down a previous challenge from Zelenskiy to meet him in person and has said he does not see him as a legitimate leader because Ukraine, which is under martial law, did not hold new elections when Zelenskiy's five-year mandate expired last year. Russia also denies abducting children. 

The Kremlin said this week it was unrealistic to expect "miracles" from the talks. 

At the last meeting on June 2, Russia handed Ukraine a memorandum setting out its key demands, including: full withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from four regions of the country that Russia has claimed as its own; limits on the size of Ukraine's military; enhanced rights for Russian-speakers in Ukraine; and acceptance by Kyiv of neutral status, outside NATO or any other alliance. 

Ukraine sees those terms as tantamount to surrender, and Zelenskiy described the Russian stance as an ultimatum. 

Ukraine wants an immediate ceasefire, reparations, international security guarantees and no restrictions on its military strength.