A senior member of the Syrian Islamist group, Jaish al-Islam, has been detained in France and charged with war crimes and torture.

The man, born in 1988, is a former spokesman for the group and has been in France with a student visa under the Erasmus program. He was detained in Marseille.

He appeared before an investigating magistrate in Paris who charged him with torture, war crimes and complicity in forced disappearances, said the source.

Jaysh al-Islam is a coalition of hardline Islamist groups opposing the Damascus regime that have emerged during the Syrian civil war. Its members have been fighting Islamic State jihadists, but human rights activists have accused them of torture.