Sole surviving jihadist in Paris attacks jailed for life
Court gives 32-year-old maximum sentence with little hope of parole for his part in Bataclan atrocities
THE only surviving jihadist in the 2015 Paris terror attacks was last night found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison, marking the end of the biggest trial in French history.
Salah Abdeslam was found guilty of murder and attempted murder for his part in the attacks which saw Islamic State militants storm the French capital, attacking the national sports stadium, bars and the Bataclan concert hall, leaving 130 people dead.
The 32-year-old was arrested by police four months after the massacre, having ditched his defective suicide belt on the night of the attacks and fleeing back to his hometown of Brussels. He insisted he declined to detonate himself “out of humanity”.
On Monday, in his final statement, he said: “I went to prison at the age of 26. I’m not perfect, I made mistakes, it’s true. But I’m not a murderer, I’m not a killer. If you convict me for murder, you will be committing an injustice.”
However, Jean-louis Périès, the president judge, said the court had decided that Abdeslam’s involvement in the Belgian terror cell had begun “well before” the Paris attacks.
Although the target assigned to him in Paris remained in doubt, the judges considered that the fact his explosive belt was not working seriously cast doubt on his claims that he had a change of heart about blowing himself up.
He was given a full-life term which offers only a small chance of parole after 30 years, only the fifth time such a sentence has been handed down since it was created in 1994. The verdict matched the prosecutors’ demands for the most severe sanction allowed under French law.
François Hollande, president at the time of the attacks, hailed the trial and the verdict. He said: “Justice enabled the search for truth to better understand the thought processes of Islamist terrorism.”
The 19 other men on trial besides Abdeslam were found guilty of offering logistical support or plotting other attacks. Among them, Mohamed Abrini admitted to driving some of the attackers to Paris and explained how he was meant to take part but pulled out.
Yesterday he was found guilty of “involvement in a criminal terrorist gang” and “complicity in murder and attempted murder” and given life in prison with 22 years without parole.
He was, said the judge, “fully integrated into the terror cell” and “could not claim to have been unaware until the last moment the attack plans”.
However, he had “clearly given up [taking part] at the last moment, unsettling the initial plans”. Six of the 20 people on trial in Paris were missing, including the overall commander, senior Syrian-based IS figure Oussama Atar, who is presumed dead.
Aurélie Sylvestre lost her partner Matthieu in the Bataclan while pregnant with their second child, who was born on March 16, 2016, two days before police arrested Abdeslam in Brussels.
She had remained silent about the trauma until the trial which she said had helped her break her silence as she realised “we had all been burned by the same flame”.
“The woman I used to be exploded on Nov 13 [2015]. For six years, I had the feeling I was picking up little pieces of myself. With this trial, I have been able to gather this debris and sculpt, bring back to life the woman I was,” she said.