Paris [France]June 30 (ANI): A French court on Wednesday (local time) found all defendants in the 2015 terrorist attack in Paris guilty, including Salah Abdeslam, who organized and carried out the attack on the Bataclan Theater in Paris.
In addition to Abdeslam, 19 other men accused of playing crucial roles in the country’s worst peacetime attacks were found guilty “of all charges”, Euronews reported.
Only 14 of them have appeared in court, while the other six have been brought to justice in their absence.
Abdeslam is the only survivor of the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group that organized and carried out the attack and was sentenced to life in prison without parole, Euronews reported.
Imprisonment without probation is the heaviest under French criminal law, and extremely rare, as most of those sentenced to life imprisonment have the right to appeal after 18 to 22 years, Euronews reported.
However, being found guilty of terrorism resulting in death can increase the security period to 30 years or no conditional release.
Mohamed Abrini was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 22 years behind bars, where the court found that it established “his loyalty” to the so-called Islamic State.
During the trial, Abrini explained how he was supposed to take part in the attack, but ended up backing down.
Mohamed Bakkali, Osama Krayem, Sofien Ayari and Ahmed Dahmani were all sentenced to 30 years in prison, with at least two-thirds served.
Bakkali, who was said to have played a “fundamental role” in the attacks, bought rifles and rented safe houses and getaway cars, the court said.
He is already serving 25 years in prison in Belgium for a failed attack on a Thalys train en route to Paris.
Krayem, a Swedish citizen, had spent some time in Syria and fought for the so-called Islamic State. His DNA was found in apartments used by the attackers in Paris, and he is believed to have taken part in the Brussels airport attack in 2016.
Ayari, a Tunisian citizen who also traveled to Syria to join IS, was arrested along with Abdeslam in Brussels in March 2016. Together with Krayem, the two are said to have planned an attack on Amsterdam Airport Schipol.
Dahmani, who is serving another sentence in Turkey, provided logistical assistance to Abdeslam, the court said.
The rest received between two and 22 years in prison for a range of charges, ranging from participating in the planning and helping to obtain weapons or making suicide vests to providing logistical support before and after the attacks, Euronews reported.
On November 13, 2015, three suicide bombers struck outside the Stade de France in Saint-Denis north of Paris during a hectic football match.
In a simultaneous attack, a group including another suicide bomber began indiscriminately firing on people in cafes and restaurants in central Paris, and another terrorist group carried out a mass shooting and took hostages at a rock concert attended by about 1,500 people.
The attacks killed 130 people and injured 350. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying it was retaliation for French airstrikes on ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq. (ANI)