The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor's Office (PNAT) has for the first time instructed magistrates to investigate suspicions of crimes against humanity committed by a French jihadist.

According to AFP, the man, known as Sabri Essid, was a figure of the Toulouse movement and is accused of crimes against the Yazidi community.

The PNAT, which has been investigating for several years the crimes suffered by the Yazidis, has opened this Friday a judicial investigation for "genocide" and "crimes against humanity", demanding the indictment of Sabri Essid for acts committed between 2014 and 2016.

Essid is believed to have died at the beginning of 2018, possibly killed by his own ISIS friends. 

Essid was born in Toulouse in 1984.

In August 2014, the Islamic State jihadists had invaded Mount Sinjar, in northern Iraq, where the Yazidis were living, killing thousands of them and abducting thousands of women and girlswho have been reduced to sexual slaves, raped and sold.

In the spring of 2014, Essid left to join ISIS in Syria. He was recognized in March 2015 on a video broadcast by ISIS, where he is seen in the company of a 12-year-old who is shooting a man, they accused to be an informer, in the head.

To date, investigations into jihadist mercenaries in France were only opened within the charge of terrorism.