The only survivor of a team of Islamic State extremists was convicted on Wednesday of murder and other charges and sentenced to life in prison without parole in the 2015 bombings and shootings in Paris that killed 130 people in the deadliest peace attacks in French history.
The special court also convicted 19 more men involved in the assault after a nine-month trial.
The main suspect Salah Abdeslam was found guilty of murder and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise. The court found that his explosive vest was malfunctioning, and rejected his argument that he abandoned the vest because he decided not to continue with his part of the attack on the night of November 13, 2015.
The killings at the Bataclan concert hall, Paris cafes and the national stadium sparked an intensification of French military action against extremists abroad and a security crackdown at home.
Abdeslam, a 32-year-old Belgian with Moroccan roots, received the harshest sentence possible in France. Life imprisonment without parole has only been handed down four times in the country, for crimes related to rape and murder of minors.
Of the accused, in addition to Abdeslam, 18 received several convictions for terrorism, and one was convicted on a charge of misdemeanor fraud. Punishments ranging from suspended sentences to life imprisonment were imposed.
“Cannot be repaired”
Arthur Dénouveaux, who survived the Bataclan massacre, seemed tired but relieved that the trial was over.
“I hope I can put the word‘ victim ’into the past,” he said.
“When things like this happen you have no possible reparation. That’s why you have justice,” he said, though “justice can’t do everything.”
He said, “Put an exclamation mark at the end.”
A sketch of the courtroom shows Abdeslam as the verdict was read on Wednesday at the Île de la Cité courthouse in Paris. (Elisabeth de Pourquery / France Televisions / Reuters)
During the trial, Abdeslam proclaimed his radicalism, wept, apologized to the victims and asked the judges to forgive his “mistakes”.
For the families of the victims and survivors of the attacks, the trial has been unbearable but crucial in their search for justice and closure.
For months, the packed main hall and the 12 overflow rooms of the 13th-century Palace of Justice listened to the horrifying tales of the victims, along with Abdeslam’s testimony.
The other defendants are largely accused of helping with logistics or transportation. At least one is accused of playing a direct role in the deadly attacks of March 2016 in Brussels, which was also claimed by the Islamic State group.
State of emergency
The trial was an opportunity for survivors and those loved ones to mourn to explain the deeply personal horrors inflicted that night and to hear details of countless acts of courage, humanity, and compassion among strangers.
Some were waiting for justice, but most only wanted to tell the defendants directly that they had been irreparably marked, but not broken.
“The killers, these terrorists, thought they were shooting at the crowd, at a mass of people,” Dominique Kielemoes said at the start of the trial in September 2021. His son died of bloodshed in one of the cafes. Hearing the testimony of the victims was “crucial to both their own healing and that of the nation,” he said.
“It wasn’t a mass: they were individuals who had a life, who loved, had hopes and expectations.”
Families of the victims, journalists and lawyers are attending the court where the trial was held safely this Wednesday. (Abdulmonam Eassa / Getty Images)
France changed in the wake of the attacks: authorities declared a state of emergency and armed agents are constantly patrolling public spaces.
The violence provoked a search for the soul between French and Europeans, as most of the attackers were born and raised in France or Belgium. And they forever transformed the lives of all those who suffered losses or testified.
Presiding Judge Jean-Louis Peries said at the start of the trial that he belongs to the “international and national events of this century.”
France emerged from a state of emergency in 2017, after incorporating many of the toughest measures into law.
Some defendants are presumed dead
Fourteen of the accused have gone to court, including Abdeslam. All but six absent men are presumed to have died in Syria or Iraq; the other is in prison in Turkey.
Most suspects are accused of helping to create false identities, transporting attackers back to Europe from Syria or providing them with money, phones, explosives or weapons. Abdeslam was the only defendant tried on various charges of murder and kidnapping as a member of a terrorist organization.
“Not everyone is a jihadist, but everyone you are judging has agreed to participate in a terrorist group, whether out of conviction, cowardice or greed,” prosecutor Nicolas Braconnay told the court in this month’s final discussion.
Some defendants, including Abdeslam, said innocent civilians were targeted because of France’s policies in the Middle East and hundreds of civilian deaths in Western airstrikes in areas controlled by the Islamic State of Syria and the Middle East. Iraq.
During the closing talks on Monday, Abdelslam’s lawyer, Olivia Ronen, told a court that her client is the only one in the group of attackers who did not fire explosives to kill others that night. He cannot be convicted of murder, he argued.
“If a life sentence is pronounced with no hope of re-experiencing freedom, I’m afraid we’ve lost our sense of proportion,” Ronan said. During the trial, he stressed that “he is not giving legitimacy to the attacks” by defending his client in court.
Abdeslam apologized to the victims in his last court appearance on Monday, saying his remorse and grief are sincere and sincere. Listening to the victims ’stories about“ so much suffering ”changed him, he said.
“I’ve made mistakes, it’s true, but I’m not a killer, I’m not a killer.”