PARIS – Twenty men were sentenced Wednesday for their worst roles Islamic terrorist attack In French history, a series of coordinated shootings and bombings in November 2015 killed 130 people in and near Paris and injured more than 500, leaving lasting scars on the nation’s psyche.
10 month record trial limit, Salah Abdeslamthe only surviving member of the Islamic State extremist group that carried out the attacks, was found guilty by a panel of judges of all the charges against him and sentenced to life in prison, ineligible to be pardoned for 30 years.
The other defendants, who allegedly intended to participate in the attacks or provide varying degrees of logistical help to the attackers, were found guilty of most of the crimes against against them, with sentences ranging from two years to life in prison. some cases, some of that time is suspended.
Events of that period France is deeply hurt and continue to shape national debates about French identity, abode of muslims in a country that considers itself secular and balance between individual freedom and collective security.
Hundreds of people testified in a huge Paris courtroom specially built to house more than 500 people – lawyers, survivors, victims’ families, defendants, experts and even the French president at the time of the attacks, François Hollande, the first for the former French to lead. It was also one of the few trials in France to be filmed, for historical purposes, and the first that the plaintiffs could watch live on internet radio.
The court found the 19 defendants guilty of all charges against them, including accomplices to murder and hostage taking, as well as participation in a terrorist plot. A defendant was convicted of a lesser charge of participating in a criminal conspiracy.
Judgments announced Wednesday can still be appealed, and the court has not received all of the answers it wanted from the defendants, some of whom have remained largely silent.
Prosecutors were unable to determine where most of the weapons used in the attack were purchased, or whether Islamic State was planning other simultaneous attacks on Paris and Amsterdam airports. no, as suggested by documents later found by investigators. Victims don’t always get the clarity they hoped for about what prompted the attackers or how the conspiracy was masterminded.
But the trial was conducted in a methodical manner, with little fanfare, few incidents and minimal political spectacle – even as the pandemic raged across the globe, war broke out in Europe and France. hold a presidential election – build each day into a judicial milestone.
The trial also served as a trial for a number of survivors and victims’ families, many of them testified during five emotional weeks in the fall about the devastating physical and psychological consequences of attacks and the difficult path to recovery. Two survivors of the attacks committed suicide in the years that followed.
Judgment “will not heal wounds, visible or invisible, it will not raise the dead, but it will at least be able to assure them that justice and law are the last word here, ” Camille Hennetier, one of the prosecutors, said earlier this month.
During the attack on the evening of November 13, 2015, 10 extremists of the Islamic State committed a series of near-simultaneous shootings and suicide bombings at the Bataclan concert hall, the area outside France’s national football stadium and the terraces of cafes and restaurants in central Paris. .
The attackers most are French citizens, who live in a carefully choreographed plottraveled to territory in Islamic State-controlled Syria for military training, before returning to Europe, where attacks were planned, mainly in Belgium.
Only 14 of the 20 defendants appeared in court, with six others missing or presumed dead. As the sole survivor of the pier, Mr Abdeslam, 32, is the central figure – and perhaps also the most elusive.
At first, little was expected of Mr. Abdeslam, a French citizen of Moroccan origin living in Belgium and who was arrested after four months on the run. Molenbeek, a neighborhood in Brussels. He refused to cooperate with investigators and the judge in the years leading up to the trial, told the court on the first day of the proceedings that he was “a fighter for the Islamic State.”
Mr Abdeslam eventually opened up about his participation in the attacks and asked forgiveness from the victims, but he never gave up on the ideology of the Islamic State and repeatedly asserted that the attacks was carried out only in response to French air strikes in Syria.
He admitted that he had dropped the suicide bombers outside the football stadium, on the northern outskirts of the capital. But he said he was included in the plot just two days earlier and that he changed his mind when he arrived at the bar, where he was supposed to blow himself up.
“I made a mistake,” Mr Abdeslam told the court on Monday, on the final day of the hearing. “But I’m not a killer, I’m not a killer.”
Prosecutors were not confused. They say evidence against Mr Abdeslam, who drove some of the attackers and their accomplices across Europe, suggests he was an integral part of the plot. They insist he failed to carry out the attack because his suicide belt was malfunctioning and not because he had a change of heart, and pointed to letters written while he was on the run. shows he wished he had carried out the attack.
Only Mr Abdeslam is directly charged with murder, attempted murder and taking hostages – the Bataclan attackers hold hostage in the concert hall for several hours.
The other defendants were charged with planning to participate in attacks or aiding the attackers by hiring evacuees to hide weapons and explosives, bring cell members across the border, or secure fake cash and documents. Some of the defendants were accused of being hardline Muslim extremists who knew the attack was imminent. Others, like some of Mr Abdeslam’s childhood friends, are suspected of helping the conspirators without fully knowing what was planned.
Defense attorneys, most of them belongs to a young generation traumatized by a series of terrorist attacks in France, were careful not to defend their client’s reasons. Instead, they urge the courts to avoid using broad brush in the trial of defendants with very different degrees of involvement in the conspiracy, and uphold the legal principles they consider to be at stake. threatened by ever-expanding anti-terrorism laws.
Margaux Durand-Poincloux, one of the lawyers, said: “There is something more important than the client in a criminal trial. “It’s democracy.”
