The service said in a statement that the man was believed to have headed the interrogation department of the National Defence Force (NDF) in Syria in 2013 and 2014. It did not give his name.

“The suspicion is that from this position the man committed acts of torture and sexual violence against civilians”, it said.

He arrived in the Netherlands in July 2021 after which he received a temporary asylum permit. Following a tip, the International Crimes Team (TIM) tracked him down shortly after his arrival.

In recent years Dutch courts have convicted several Syrian nationals of war crimes who were members of opposition and Islamist militias in Syria.

Such cases are prosecuted in the Netherlands under “universal jurisdiction” principles, which say suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity can be prosecuted abroad.

Last week, prosecutors asked for a 17-year sentence at the conclusion of the trial of a 35-year-old suspected member of a pro-Assad militia. The verdict in that case is expected early next year.

Three human rights organisations, including the Dutch arm of Oxfam, have brought the case at the district court in The Hague, stating the export of the fighter plane parts enables Israel to bomb the Gaza strip.

“Israel disregards the fundamental principles of the laws of war, such as distinguishing between civilian and military targets and the principle of proportionality,” in the bombing of the Gaza strip, the organisations said in their court filings.

Israel denies having carried out war crimes, saying its forces abide by international law while fighting Palestinian militants who operate in densely populated civilian areas.

The Netherlands is home to a regional warehouse which stores U.S.-owned F-35 parts, which can be sent on to other F-35 partner countries such as Israel.

Several weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, the Dutch government allowed a shipment of reserve parts for Israeli F-35s, government documents show.

The Dutch Defence ministry, which oversees the exports, would not comment on the court case, but in a letter to parliament last week said that, based on the current information, “it cannot be established that the F-35s are involved in grave violations of the humanitarian laws of war”.

More than 15,400 inhabitants of the Gaza strip have been killed as of Sunday, according to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics, in nearly two months of warfare that broke out after the Hamas cross-border raid on southern Israel in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and more than 200 taken hostage.

The court case will start at 10 a.m. CET (0900 GMT) and will hear the claimants’ case and a response by lawyers for the Dutch state. A ruling is expected in two weeks.

The deployment is in addition to the infantry unit of around 145 soldiers the Netherlands said in July they would send to Iraq from Jan. 1, 2024.

NATO says its non-combat mission in Iraq is aimed at strengthening Iraqi security institutions and forces so they can prevent the return of ISIS, fight terrorism and stabilise the country.

The new Dutch unit will primarily be used to supply food and equipment to troops and for transport of military staff and equipment.

The now-lifted restrictions followed a “presumption of denial” policy and meant that permits for arms exports to the three countries involved were denied unless it could be “irrefutably” proven that the arms would not be used for the conflicts in north Syria or Yemen.

In a letter to parliament last week, the government said it needs to remove the policy as it wants to join a Franco-German-Spanish treaty that regulates arms exports while following EU and UN arms export criteria.

None of the (potential) treaty countries apply a “presumption of denial” policy as treaty partners trust each other’s export control assessments, the government added in the letter.

The Joint Investigation Team was established by France and Sweden in October 2021 and supported by The Hague-based Eurojust to identify and prosecute foreign extremists who targeted Yazidis during the armed conflict in Syria and Iraq.

Eurojust said the teamwork already has borne fruit, including in France, where a Yazidi victim of a French jihadist couple was identified. That led to to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity being added to an existing case.

The joint investigation team is part of a broader international effort to mete out justice for atrocities targeting Yazidis, a minority considered heretics by the Islamic State militant group.

A United Nations probe concluded in 2021 that crimes committed against Yazidis by Islamic State extremists amounted to genocide.

IS attacked the heartland of the Yazidi community at the foot of Sinjar Mountain in August 2014. During the weeklong assault, IS killed hundreds of Yazidis and abducted 6,417, more than half of them women and girls. Most of the captured adult men were likely eventually killed. Women and girls were considered commodities for rape and servitude.

Prosecutions of returning foreign militants for crimes against Yazidis already are underway in Europe.

A German woman was convicted last week of keeping a Yazidi woman as a slave during her time with the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, and sentenced to nine years and three months in prison.

The state court in the western city of Koblenz convicted the 37-year-old woman of crimes against humanity, membership in a foreign terrorist organization and being an accessory to genocide, German news agency dpa reported. Authorities have identified her only as Nadine K. in line with German privacy rules.

In February, Dutch authorities announced that they were prosecuting a woman who traveled from the Netherlands to join IS on a charge of slavery as a crime against humanity. The woman allegedly used a Yazidi woman as a slave in Syria in 2015. The case marked the first Dutch trial of an alleged IS member for crimes against a Yazidi victim.

The Netherlands could be the main destination for the transport of hydrogen derived from renewable energy sources from Saudi Arabia to Europe, Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said at the World Hydrogen Summit in Rotterdam.

“Rotterdam would be our hub to Europe,” the prince said, adding the Netherlands and Germany would be Saudi Arabia’s “natural partners” in the green hydrogen trade.

“You are putting facilities on the ground, you are building storages and pipelines, you have a plan.”

The action by Edwin Wagensveld, leader of the Dutch branch of the far-right Pegida movement, and a Danish far-right activist’s burning of the Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm the same month sparked protests in several predominantly Muslim countries around the world.

While desecrating Islam’s holy book is not a crime in the Netherlands, prosecutors said comments that Wagensveld made while damaging the Quran amounted to an unlawful insult to the Muslim community.

In a written statement, the Public Prosecution Service of The Hague said his comments are suspected of breaching an article of the Dutch penal code “which states that deliberately insulting a group of people because of their religion or belief is a crime.”

The statement did not refer to Wagensveld by name, in line with Dutch privacy rules, but referred to a 54-year-old Dutch national who lives in Germany.

“The suspect will be questioned on this matter by the Dutch police,” prosecutors said.

On Twitter, Wagensveld retweeted a post by a supporter calling the action an abuse of power.

The two discussed how to advance their areas of cooperation to benefit both nations’ interests during the meeting.

The Russian-Ukrainian issue and global initiatives to find a political solution in order to achieve peace and security were among the regional and global topics that the ministers also reviewed.
Saud Al-Sati, the deputy minister for political affairs at the ministry of foreign affairs, was present at the meeting between the two foreign ministers.

The most recent meeting between the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands took place on February 18 outside the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
The oil tanker FSO Safer, which is moored 4.8 nautical miles off the coast of Yemen’s Hodeidah governorate and has been deteriorating and could result in a massive oil spill or explosion, was the topic of a phone call between Prince Faisal and Hoekstra on May 31.

Two nations that support UN efforts to address the environmental and humanitarian dangers posed by Yemen’s Safer oil tanker in the Red Sea are Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands.
For the first stage of the salvage operation, the Kingdom has donated $10 million and the Netherlands has contributed $7 million.