The only surviving attacker of the 2015 terrorist massacre at the Bataclan Theater and other places in Paris has been convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole.
It is the most severe sentence possible in France, and very rare.
Salah Abdeslam was the prime suspect in an exceptional trial for the 2015 attacks.
A French special court on Wednesday found Abdeslam and 19 other men guilty of participating in Islamic State terrorist attacks at the Bataclan theater, Paris cafes and France’s national stadium in 2015 that killed 130 people in the attacks. most deadly peace in French history.
Abdeslam was found guilty of murder and attempted murder. The court found his explosive vest to be malfunctioning, and rejected his argument that he abandoned the vest because he decided not to continue his attack.
A woman is evacuated from the Bataclan concert hall on November 13, 2015 in Paris. (AP)
Presiding Judge Jean-Louis Peries read the verdicts in a court surrounded by unprecedented security, and closed a nine-month trial.
Of the accused, in addition to Abdeslam, 18 received several convictions for terrorism, and one was convicted on a charge of misdemeanor fraud.
During the nine-month trial, Abdeslam proclaimed his radicalism, wept, apologized to the victims and asked the judges to forgive his “mistakes.”
For the families of the victims and survivors of the attacks, the trial has been unbearable but crucial in their search for justice and closure.
For months, the packed main hall and the 12 overflow rooms of the 13th-century Palace of Justice listened to the horrifying tales of the victims, along with Abdeslam’s testimony. The other defendants are largely accused of helping with logistics or transportation. At least one is accused of playing a direct role in the deadly attacks of March 2016 in Brussels, which was also claimed by the Islamic State group.
Journalists focus on the special room built for the trial of the 2015 bombings in Paris. (AP)
For the survivors and loved ones of mourning, the trial was an opportunity to tell deeply personal accounts of the horrors inflicted that night and to hear details of countless acts of courage, humanity, and compassion among strangers. Some expected justice, but most only meant directly to the defendants that they have been irreparably marked, but not broken.
“The killers, these terrorists, thought they were shooting at the crowd, at a mass of people,” Dominique Kielemoes said at the start of the trial in September 2021. His son died of bloodshed in one of the cafes. Hearing the testimony of the victims was “crucial to both their own healing and that of the nation,” Kielemoes said.
“It wasn’t a mass, they were individuals who had a life, who loved, had hopes and expectations,” he said.
Salah Abdeslam, the main suspect and the only surviving member of the nine who terrorized Paris on November 13, 2015. (AP)
France changed in the wake of the attacks: authorities declared a state of emergency and armed agents are constantly patrolling public spaces. The violence provoked a search for the soul between French and Europeans, as most of the attackers were born and raised in France or Belgium. And they forever transformed the lives of all those who suffered losses or testified.
Presiding Judge Jean-Louis Peries said at the start of the trial that he belongs to the “international and national events of this century.” France emerged from the state of emergency in 2017, after incorporating into law many of the toughest measures.
Fourteen of the defendants have been in court, including Abdeslam, the sole survivor of the 10-member attack team that terrorized Paris that Friday night. All but six absent men are presumed to have died in Syria or Iraq; the other is in prison in Turkey.
Most suspects are accused of helping to create false identities, transporting attackers back to Europe from Syria or providing them with money, phones, explosives or weapons.
A researcher is working outside the Bataclan concert hall after the 2015 bombings in Paris. (AP)
Abdeslam, a 32-year-old Belgian with Moroccan roots, was the only defendant tried on various charges of murder and kidnapping as a member of a terrorist organization.
The sentence sought for Abdeslam from life imprisonment without parole has only been handed down four times in France, for offenses related to rape and murder of minors.
Prosecutors are asking for life imprisonment for nine more defendants. The remaining suspects were tried on minor terrorism charges and face sentences ranging from five to 30 years.
In the final arguments, prosecutors stressed that the 20 defendants, who had scattered throughout the French capital, armed with semi-automatic rifles and vests full of explosives to carry out parallel attacks, are members of the extremist group Islamic State responsible for the massacres.
Salah Abdeslam’s lawyer, Olivia Ronen, on the left, speaks outside the courtroom in 2021. (AP)
“Not everyone is a jihadist, but everyone you are judging has agreed to participate in a terrorist group, whether out of conviction, cowardice or greed,” prosecutor Nicolas Braconnay told the court this month.
Some defendants, including Abdeslam, said innocent civilians were targeted because of France’s policies in the Middle East and hundreds of civilian deaths in Western airstrikes in areas controlled by the Islamic State of Syria and the Middle East. Iraq.
During his testimony, former President François Hollande dismissed allegations that his government was to blame.
The Islamic State, “this pseudo-state, declared war with weapons of war,” Hollande said. The Paris attackers did not terrorize, shoot, kill, mutilate and traumatize civilians because of religion, he said, adding that it was “fanaticism and barbarism.”
Rescue workers usually attend to victims outside a cafe in Paris on November 13, 2015. (AP)
During the closing talks on Monday, Abdelslam’s lawyer, Olivia Ronen, told a court that her client is the only one in the group of attackers who did not fire explosives to kill others that night. He cannot be convicted of murder, he argued.
“If a life sentence is pronounced with no hope of re-experiencing freedom, I’m afraid we’ve lost our sense of proportion,” Ronan said. During the trial, he stressed that “he is not giving legitimacy to the attacks” by defending his client in court.
Abdeslam apologized to the victims in his last court appearance on Monday, saying his remorse and grief are sincere and sincere. Listening to the victims ’stories about“ so much suffering ”changed him, he said.
“I’ve made mistakes, it’s true, but I’m not a killer, I’m not a killer,” he said.