Suspected IS terrorists accused of kidnapping French journalists in Syria begin trial in Paris

The trial of five men suspected of kidnapping and torturing four French journalists in Syria in 2013 began in Paris on Monday.

The men are accused of being part of the so-called Islamic State group, which kidnapped and held four journalists — Nicolas Hénin, Didier François, Edouard Elias and Pierre Torres — for over 10 months.

Dozens of other individuals, including humanitarian workers, were also held captive by the group between 2013 and 2014.

The main defendant in the trial is French jihadist Mehdi Nemmouche, who is already serving a life sentence for killing four people during his attack on the Brussels Jewish Museum in 2014.

Nemmouche has kept his silence since his arrest on 30 May 2014, but spoke up for the first time in the Paris courtroom on Monday.

"I was never the jailer of the Western hostages or any other hostage, and I never met these people in Syria," he said.

All four journalists — who were released in April 2014 — assured investigators that Nemmouche was their jailer, underlining that he was the only one who never covered his face.

The alleged victims singled out the 39-year-old for being particularly cruel and "brutal", as well as "perverse, violent and megalomaniac".

"He hit us on the head with a club. He crushed our fingers with pliers. He used electric shocks. He subjected us to mock executions", they recalled.

"He (Nemmouche) deliberately left the bodies of people who had been tortured out during the night, we heard them screaming all night long", Didier François, who was abducted in June 2013 while reporting in northern Syria, told French broadcaster TF1 last week.

Information about the psychological and physical torture allegedly inflicted on the journalists, as well as details of the wider treatment of hostages held by the IS group in Syria is set to be presented over the course of the trial.