The Court of Paris pronounces the most severe sentence of the Gallic penal code against salah abdeslam
The penalties range from 30 and two years in prison for the other 13 defendants present at the trial
Long prison sentences in response to deadliest attack on Islamic State (IS) in Europe. The court of paris sentenced this Wednesday afternoon to the life imprisonment not reviewable to salah abdeslamthe only survivor of the jihadists who perpetrated the attacks on the Bataclan and the Parisian terraces on November 13, 2015. He also punished with a reviewable permanent prison sentence other members of that command involved in the preparation of a jihadist massacre, which left a trail of 131 dead and more than 400 wounded.
“The guilt of Salah Abdeslam as a co-perpetrator of these murders in relation to a terrorist project is confirmed by the court, since it is considered that the set of objectives must be recognized as one and the same crime scene,” Judge Jean-Louis said. Périès at the reading of the sentence before a packed room in the historic headquarters of the Court of Paris. That is, they considered him guilty of the crime of “assassination in terrorist gang“. Throughout the trial, Abdeslam had defended himself by assuring that “he did not kill anyone”. After years of almost permanent silence, this Frenchman with Moroccan roots explained that he gave up blowing up his belt with explosives in a bar in the north of Paris “for humanity” But the sentence questions this version and recalls that his belt was defective.
The court followed the prosecution’s request and sentenced Abdeslam, 32, to life imprisonment without review. It’s about the severest penalty of the French penal codeUntil now, he had only spoken out four times for serial killers. In theory, it carries a life sentence. But after 30 years behind bars, the convicted can ask for a modification and it can be approved after consulting psychiatric doctors and their families.
All 20 defendants found guilty
In fact, the magistrates recognized as guilty 19 accused of all the crimes that weighed on them. Six of them, considered the masterminds, were tried in absentia, as most of them are unaccounted for, probably dead in Syria. Five of these instigators received a non-reviewable life sentence.
Several of those present were part of a jihadist cell that also bloodied Brussels in March 2016, while others were accomplices, although “they did not share the jihadist ideology,” according to the ruling. The penalties range between 30 and two years in prison. Some of those sentenced to 30 years behind bars are the Belgian Mohamed Bakkali, who had “a primary role in logistics”, or the Swedish Osama Krayem, an active member of IS and who planned an attack against the Amsterdam airport that same fall. .
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The court acquitted Farid Kharkhach of several of the crimes, judged for having provided false identity documents to the jihadists. He sentenced him to two years behind bars, which he has already served. In fact, the three accused who appeared without being imprisoned they won’t go to prison. The defense lawyers have 10 days to appeal the sentence and, probably, they will.
The sentence puts an end to a process that will be inscribed in the annals of the French Justice, both for its size and the relevance of the facts judged. During almost 10 months of hearings, 14 defendants, hundreds of lawyers and civil parties, French and Belgian policemen or former president François Hollande appeared before the judges. Despite moving interventions from the victims and some abrupt questioning, the trial passed without major incident. And neither was it instrumentalized by the extreme right.