Verdict Issued, Trial Over 2015 Paris Attacks
Judges handed down verdicts on Wednesday to 20 men accused over the November 2015 Paris attacks that left 130 people dead, wrapping up the biggest trial in modern French history.
Judges handed out their verdict in the trial of France’s worst peacetime attack, the killing of 130 people in a coordinated gun-and-bomb rampage by Islamist gunmen across Paris.
Salah Abdeslam, the lone survivor of a 10-man jihadist unit that brought terror to the French capital, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for his role in the 2015 bombings and shootings across Paris.
Following a marathon trial that lasted over nine months, the special court also convicted 19 other men involved in the assault claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
Abdeslam was found guilty of murder and attempted murder in relation to a terrorist enterprise.
The court found that his explosives vest malfunctioned, dismissing his argument that he ditched the vest because he decided not to follow through with the attack.
His sentence, the toughest under French law, had only been pronounced four times in France – for crimes related to rape and murder of minors.
Among the other defendants, 18 were given various terrorismrelated convictions, and one was convicted on a lesser fraud charge.
They were given punishments ranging from suspended sentences to life in prison.
“It’s a balanced verdict, harsh for some, less so for others. It’s called justice,” said Gérard Chemla, a lawyer representing several plaintiffs at the trial.
In the absence of the rest of the attackers, the men on trial besides Abdeslam were suspected of offering mostly logistical support or plotting other attacks.
They included Mohamed Abrini, who admitted to driving some of the Paris attackers to the French capital.
The court handed him a life sentence with 22 years as a minimum term.
Also on trial was Swedish citizen Osama Krayem, who was identified in a notorious IS group video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage.
He was sentenced to 30 years in jail and ordered to serve two thirds of it behind bars, as was fellow jihadist Sofian Ayari, a Tunisian. The pair were suspected of planning an attack on Amsterdam airport.
Mohamed Bakkali, a BelgianMoroccan, was handed the same sentence for his ‘fundamental role’ in preparing the Paris attacks.
A trial unlike any other
By any measure, the Paris attacks trial was unprecedented in scale and complexity, reflecting the enormity of an atrocity that sent shockwaves through France and beyond.
The investigation took six years and its written conclusions stretch to 53 metres (174 feet) when lined up. Hearings lasted more than nine months, accommodated in a speciallybuilt courtroom inside the 13th-century Palais de Justice in central Paris, with chairs and benches for almost 600 people.