SALAH ABDESLAM CASE NOVEMBER 13

SEVEN LIFE SENTENCES

The court followed the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor's Office (Pnat) which on June 10 had requested the maximum sentence against Salah Abdeslam. The five magistrates sentence this 32-year-old Franco-Moroccan to life imprisonment, incompressible. He will therefore have to serve at least thirty years in prison before being able to request the lifting of this incompressible perpetuity, a prelude to any request for adjustment of sentence. He did not react publicly to this verdict.

The only surviving member of the November 13 commando, Salah Abdeslam is indeed considered "the co-author of the attacks, all the targets of this November 13 constituting a single crime scene", according to the Assize Court. .

The magistrate added that "the court also recognized that the explosive vest he was wearing was not functional, which seriously calls into question Salah Abdeslam's declarations as to his renunciation".

“Radicalized defendants”

No extenuating circumstances either against Mohamed Abrini, who had taken part in the famous convoy of death in November 2015.

On the other hand, Sofien Ayari, 28, and Osama Krayem, 29, escape life imprisonment. They are sentenced to thirty years of criminal imprisonment with two thirds incompressible, for "their participation in an association of terrorist criminals".

Mohamed Bakkali, 35, who has already been sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for the August 2015 attack on the Thalys train, is also sentenced to thirty years in prison. Just like Ahmed Dahmani, 33, currently detained by Turkey.

For all these defendants, the Court considers that by "their adherence to jihadist theses, and their radicalization", they could not ignore the plans for terrorist attacks in Europe.

Life also for the Clain brothers

Life imprisonment is also pronounced against the five great absentees from this trial, supposedly dead in Syria and therefore tried by default. Among them, Osama Atar, considered "as the sponsor of the attacks"; Obeida Dibo, operational manager, and Omar Darif, one of the chief bomb disposal experts. Same life for the brothers Fabien and Jean-Michel Clain, Normans at one time in their lives and who had claimed the carnage of Paris by telephone.

"Propaganda has played an essential role in Daesh's strategy, both to spread terror and to attract new fighters," summed up President Périès.

For the other defendants, aged 29 to 41, the sentences range from two years in prison to eighteen years in prison, depending on the degree of logistical assistance provided to the November 13 commando.

"None of the three defendants who appeared free is reincarcerated at the end of the hearing", confirmed the Pnat.

The twenty defendants sentenced yesterday have ten days to appeal. History will remember the ninety deaths of the Bataclan, thirty-nine on the terraces of cafés, one at the Stade de France. Of the 400 injured, a woman and a man have since killed themselves.

Six years after a night of terror that traumatized France and after a river trial marked by the chilling stories of nearly 400 survivors or relatives at the helm, out of nearly 2,600 civil parties, the survivors will finally be able to close a page.