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Court drawing: Salah Abdeslam's face hovers over the trial
Photo:
BENOIT PEYRUCQ / AFP
130 people died in the Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015. Last night, 20 participants and supporters were sentenced to life imprisonment by a jury.
The main defendant, Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the terror squad, has to go to prison for life.
It is not yet clear whether those convicted will appeal.
However, reactions to the penalties vary widely.
The overview.
Sophie Bouchard-Stech
, whose husband from Hanover was killed in the Bataclan concert hall, was relieved: "The harsh penalties are the only guarantee that they won't start all over again," she told the AFP news agency.
The process helped her a lot, the widow said: "I met a lot of people with whom I was able to share my experiences." With the other victims and relatives, she felt at times "like part of a big family".
Sophie Parra
,
survivor
of the terror at the Bataclan concert hall, tweeted: "It's fucking over."
She told BFM TV that she was very happy with the verdict.
You have the impression that the judge was fair.
She was particularly satisfied with Abdeslam's sentence: "At the beginning of the trial he complained about his prison conditions, at the end of the trial he complained about his prison conditions.
He was just whining throughout the process.”
Meanwhile, Salah Abdeslam
's lawyer
expressed incomprehension.
The maximum penalty for his client was "unfair," Martin Vettes told France Inter.
"It seems unfair to me that Salah Abdeslam gets the same sentence as Oussama Atar." Atar is the mastermind behind the attacks and was also sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia.
Presumably he is already dead, he is said to have died in Syria.
Bruno Poncet
, also
a Bataclan survivor
, seemed ambivalent about the maximum sentence for 32-year-old Abdeslam.
He told the broadcaster France Info: "Aren't we turning a boy who still doesn't really know what he is into a radicalized beast?" On the other hand, friends who were in the Bataclan were afraid of Abdeslam's release.
France Info quoted another
Bataclan survivor
who worries Abdeslam might boast about the verdict.
"Salah Abdeslam received the highest punishment of all, although he is not the genius of evil," said the survivor, only named
Franck
. "I'm afraid that he will idolize himself with this punishment or that people will glorify him."
The
joint plaintiffs
welcomed the verdicts, according to Radio France.
Jean Reinhart,
a lawyer for a victims' association
, called the decisions intelligent.
His clients looked at the judgments with satisfaction.
Gérard Chemla
, also
counsel for joint plaintiffs
, welcomed the penalties.
"After the verdict, one has the feeling that a page is being turned," said Chemla: "We are at a point that is satisfactory for everyone, at least for the judiciary."
Politicians also took a stance on the court decisions.
François Hollande
, French President at the time of the attacks, wrote on Twitter that it was an exemplary process.
France's democracy has proven to be defensive: "The guilty have been sentenced with the means of the rule of law." He thinks of all the victims: "Their wounds remain and their grief will never go away."
French
Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne
spoke of justice on Twitter.
“It will not erase the horror of the acts committed on November 13, 2015.
But it is a strong step for all survivors, for all French."
Borne went on to write: »Islamism is a deadly poison.
We will continue to pursue and fight him with all our strength.
We owe it to the victims of November 13 and all victims of attacks.
We owe it to the Republic and to liberty, we will do everything we can to defend it".
ptz/dpa/AFP
