French justice Salah Abdeslam, the only living member of the jihadist commandos who killed 130 people in Paris and nearby Saint-Denis on November 13, 2015, was sentenced Wednesday to an unconditional life sentence.
Six years after the worst terrorist attack in Paris since The Second World War and after 10 months of trial, 20 defendants learned their sentences, which range from two years in prison to life in prison without parole.
“The sentences are pretty harsh. They won’t get out of prison right away. We’ll love it. I’m very happy,” said Sophie, a prison cell survivor. Bataclan concertsin Paris. The reading of the verdict took place in a crowded Palace of Justice, in the presence of survivors and relatives of the victims, as well as many journalists.
Abdeslam received capital punishment, applied only four times, despite attempts by his defense team to present it as a “social death penalty” and to ensure that he did not blow himself up on the night of the attack.
“I am not a murderer and if I am found guilty of murder, it will be injustice,” the 32-year-old Frenchman said on Monday, again offering his “apologies” to the survivors and relatives of the victims.
“Public opinion thinks that I was on the terraces, shooting at people, that I was in the Bataclan. You know the truth is in the opposite direction,” Abdeslam urged the court before departing for deliberations.
For National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT), the main defendant arrested in Belgium on March 18, 2016, four days before the attacks in Brussels (32 dead), actually tried to detonate his explosive belt.
“Real” life imprisonment is applied in very few cases in France. Since its inception in 1994, it has only been published four times in relation to persons convicted of killing children after raping or torturing them, to date.
Of the 20 defendants, only 14 were present. Six were tried in absentia, including five senior Islamic State (IS) commanders who are presumed dead, such as the Belgian Oussama Atar, who is credited with ordering the attack.
“I’m going to turn over a huge page, and after that, life will begin again. That’s for sure. There will be later,” he told the newspaper before sentencing. release, Aurelie Sylvester, who lost her partner and whose trial allowed her to “digest the drama.”
These are the November 13, 2015 attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis.
The terrorist attacks of 13 November 2015, which began legal proceedings last year, were a series of actions by several commandos that almost simultaneously attacked the Stade de France in Saint-Denis and various points in the center of Paris that night.
Commandos consisting of Abdelhamid Abaud, Brahim Abdeslam and Chakib Akruh, armed with machine guns, opened fire from the terraces of the Le Carillon bar and the Le Petit Cambodge restaurant in the 10th district of Paris. 13 people died and more than a dozen were injured.
Three men with military weapons drive up to the central exhibition hall of the Bataclan, a few hundred meters from Republic Square. They break in when the rock band Eagles of Death Metal was playing a concert and fire several shots at the audience. ultimately 90 people died and several hundred were injured.
(According to AFP and EFE)
Source: RPP
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