Salah Abdeslam recognized as "co-perpetrator of the acts of murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise" and sentenced to irreducible life imprisonment;
Mohamed Bakkali, having had "a primordial role in the logistics of the attacks", to 30 years of criminal imprisonment, with a two-thirds security sentence;
Mohamed Abrini, “fully integrated into the terrorist cell”, to life imprisonment with 22 years of security… On Wednesday, nineteen of the twenty defendants at the trial of the Islamist attacks of November 13, 2015 were found guilty on all counts.
This Friday the 13th, a commando of jihadists piloted from Syria and coming from Brussels had killed 130 people at the Stade de France (Saint-Denis), on terraces in the 10th and 11th arrondissements of Paris, and finally at the Bataclan.
All the actual perpetrators of the crimes died the same evening or, like their leader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a few days later.
Only one member of the group, Salah Abdeslam, managed to escape.
He was arrested in Belgium in March 2016.
The trial opened on September 8, 2021 before the Paris Assize Court specially composed of magistrates (without jurors drawn by lot), as is customary in matters of terrorism.
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The indictment was pronounced for three days, from June 8 to 10, by three general attorneys who took turns to support the accusation.
At the end of its explanations, the public prosecutor asked for sentences ranging from 5 years to life imprisonment for each of the twenty defendants - five of them, among whom the alleged principal, Osama Atar, were killed on the battlefields of Syria or Iraq, a sixth is currently being held in Turkey.
Incompressible life imprisonment was requested for Osama Atar, as well as for one of his relatives, also untraceable, Obeida Aref Dibo, and for Salah Abdeslam, presented by the public prosecutor as a co-author (and not a mere accomplice) of the facts.
The Advocate General has endeavored to present Salah Abdeslam as an individual "steeped in ideology, locked in a straitjacket", "convinced of not having killed anyone"
Life was requested, with variable safety periods, against four defendants present in the box: Mohamed Abrini (with a safety period of 22 years);
Osama Krayem, the fanatical Swede suspected of having committed atrocities in Syria and of having engineered an aborted attack against Amsterdam-Schiphol airport, walled in silence (30-year security);
the Tunisian Sofien Ayari, partner of the previous one then comrade on the run with Abdeslam in Belgium after November 13,
“intelligent, speaking perfect French”
(30-year-old security);
the efficient logistician Mohamed Bakkali,
"valet of terror who impressed us with his mastery, his calm, his level of language, and who would like to pass for the useful idiot of the El Bakraoui brothers"
, suicide bombers of the Brussels attacks of March 2016 (22-year security).
The Advocate General endeavored to present Salah Abdeslam in the guise of an individual
"steeped in ideology, locked in a straitjacket"
,
"convinced of not having killed anyone"
while, according to the magistrate, he has on the conscience and, from a legal point of view, on the hands, the blood of each of the innocents murdered at random.
A man whose calculated silences constitute
“the ultimate and perverse provocation of someone who enjoys his power”
.
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In return, the lawyers of the only surviving commando member, Mes Olivia Ronen and Martin Vettes, argued on June 24 that their client was
“not a psychopath”
and should not be sentenced to
“a social death sentence”. »
.
According to his defense, Mr. Abdeslam is a
"deserter performer"
who
"did not kill".
Mes Ronen and Vettes insisted on
the “evolution”
during the hearing of the one who presented himself as an
“Islamic State fighter”
.
“He was able to leave this shell he had dutifully built in detention”
and offered his
“sincere” apologies
to all victims.
Life would thus be a sentence worthy of a
“military tribunal”
which judges
“enemies”
and not
“accused”.
“Sanctioning Salah Abdeslam commensurate with the suffering of the victims is the law of retaliation
,” added the defense, Me Ronen.
His renunciation of detonating his trapped belt is an
"essential data which will have to weigh on your decision",
she launched to the court.
“I present no danger to society
,” assured Salah Abdeslam.
Olivia Ronen had concluded her argument with these words:
“I am not asking you for courage.
I ask you to apply the law with all the rigor that your conscience requires.
LIVE - Trial of the November 13 attacks: Salah Abdeslam sentenced to life imprisonment
After the defendants had pronounced their last words, Monday morning, the five titular magistrates accompanied by their four substitutes went to a place kept secret to deliberate there.
Their verdict was expected Wednesday
"from 5 p.m."
.
The discussions took longer than expected.
Even if the fate of Salah Abdeslam, because he is French, because he was part of the "convoy of death", monopolizes the attention, the verdict must be read as a whole, as a response to the collective story told by the survivors of November 13.