Salah Abdeslam sentenced to irreducible life imprisonment
Incompressible life was also sought against Osama Atar, the Islamic State group’s “senior terror official” and sponsor of the attacks, presumed dead in Syria.
Three lawyers pleaded acquittal for their “innocent” clients. “I am not a terrorist,” one of them repeated in his final words in court on Monday. “I’m very scared of your decision,” acknowledged another between sobs.
“The purpose of a trial is also to understand in order to judge at best and delimit the responsibility of each one and to ensure that (this type of attacks) no longer happens.
I hope that the magistrates will be able to understand what happened and to apply the law as best as possible to have the fairest decisions,” said Olivia Ronen on Wednesday.
The only surviving suicide bomber of the Bataclan attacks was sentenced Wednesday by the Special Assize Court of Paris after ten months of hearing.
Salah Abdeslam, the main defendant in the trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015, was sentenced Wednesday evening to life imprisonment incompressible by the special assize court of Paris.
The five professional magistrates followed the requisitions of the national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office, which had called for this extremely rare sanction, which makes any possibility of release tiny, against the only member still alive of the commandos who killed 130 people in Paris and Saint-Denis.
“The hearing is resumed, please sit down,” said shortly before 8:30 p.m. the president of the special assize court, Jean-Louis Périès.
“At the end of 148 days of hearing during which 415 civil parties were heard, the court wished to give an expanded statement of reasons.”
The courtroom specially built for this trial had never been so crowded, and survivors and relatives of victims squeezed each other on the wooden benches, in an electric atmosphere.
